Oral Answers to Questions

WORK AND PENSIONS

The Secretary of State was asked—

Social Care Services

Barbara Keeley: What progress has been made in developing the pilot projects for individual budgets for people receiving social care services, with particular reference to disabled people; and if he will make a statement.

James Purnell: Individual budgets, which have been piloted in 13 local authority areas, have given social care customers, including disabled people, greater choice and control over the services they receive. The pilots were comprehensively evaluated, and we expect to publish the results later in the year.

Barbara Keeley: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Next week is carers week, when we will be thinking about those issues a great deal more than usual, and I believe that disabled people and their carers in my constituency could really benefit from the extra flexibility of individual budgets. What extra steps can his Department take to try to ensure that disabled people use individual budgets much more widely once the pilots are completed?

James Purnell: I quite agree with my hon. Friend, and we believe firmly that disabled people get greater dignity and control from the use of individual budgets, which also enable them to get better solutions to the problems that we are trying to help them with.
	To give an example from the pilots, a woman with breathing problems used her individual budget to buy some air conditioning and instead of having to spend the summer in hospital, as she used to do, she was able to stay at home and look after her children. That is a great example of the kind of work that we want to encourage and will be looking to take forward in the Green Paper, which we will publish shortly.

Tim Boswell: While entirely endorsing the principle of individual budgets and in no sense wishing to suggest that people are not well empowered to make up their own mind, will the Secretary of State please bear in mind the importance of giving access to adequate and responsible advice, so that people are not, as it were, suborned into the misuse of their budget, but can use it in accordance with their needs and to best effect?

James Purnell: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he has a very long record of campaigning on those issues, which I acknowledge. The key point is that the default should be that people can continue to get the service, but if they are not satisfied with it and want to be able to do things differently they should be able to do so. Of course, they should then have the advice to enable them to do that. That is one of the key things to come up in the pilots and he is right to raise it.

Anne Begg: My own local authority, Aberdeen city council, is looking at introducing individualised budgets, particularly through a system called In Control. That is all very laudable, but Aberdeen city council's Scottish National party-Liberal administration has just slashed £27 million out of its budget and is closing a lot of facilities that were accessible to people who would qualify for individualised budgets. In fact, the whole thing is being introduced on a cuts agenda. What does my right hon. Friend make of that?

James Purnell: I condemn strongly the action of the council, which I know my hon. Friend has raised before. These issues should never be used as cover for a cuts agenda; they should be about empowering people to get better care for themselves and to get back into work.

Mark Harper: One of the critical things for those getting the benefit of individual budgets is the means of enabling them to get back into work and making it more possible for them to do so. They are, therefore, concerned about the support that they will get through the employment and support allowance. Can the Secretary of State confirm how much extra the Government are planning to spend on employment and support allowance benefit over the next five years, compared with what they spend on incapacity benefit?

James Purnell: I can give the hon. Gentleman the figure for the next three years, which is £400 million.

Employment

Bill Wiggin: How many people he expects to move into employment from out-of-work benefits by 2015.

James Purnell: The Government do not produce forecasts of the numbers moving from out-of-work benefits into employment. However, we aim to reduce the number on incapacity benefit by 1 million by 2015.

Bill Wiggin: I am grateful for that answer from the Secretary of State, but if that is the case, why do his Department's financial projections allow for only 350,000? What does he really expect the figure to end up as?

James Purnell: As the hon. Gentleman very well knows, our goal is to get 1 million off incapacity benefit, and we are bringing forward proposals in the Green Paper to do exactly that. It is established financial practice that one does not assume the effect of policies that have not yet been brought into effect—one would be spending money that one did not have already—and that is exactly what should be done under cautious financial management.

Jon Trickett: As my right hon. Friend will know, many hundreds of thousands of miners were condemned to incapacity benefit by the Conservative party, receiving no assistance whatever to get back to work, and he would probably join me in condemning that. Many of those people have been on incapacity benefit since the strike, or since the closure of the pits, and they are approaching retirement age. Can we have an assurance from him that those people will be handled with great care in any effort to get them back to work, given that they were condemned by the Conservative Administration to long-term receipt of incapacity benefit and received no help whatever from society?

James Purnell: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The number on incapacity benefit tripled under the Conservative party but has been falling for the past few years, rather than rising inexorably, which is what it used to do. The Conservative party provided no help at all for people on incapacity benefit.
	Since April, everyone has had access to pathways to work, and my hon. Friend will have constituency examples of people who have been out of work for many years who are messianic about the effect of pathways and the transformation in their lives that it has brought about.

Philip Davies: Is the Secretary of State not embarrassed that the Government have presided over circumstances in which so many people who are capable of work are not working—particularly young people sitting on their backsides and doing nothing—while relying on cheap labour from eastern Europe to hide the fact that a large number of those on benefits should be working, and could be working if the Government had more will power?

James Purnell: I think the hon. Gentleman should consider carefully the tone of his remarks and the way in which he has stigmatised young people. The truth is that each year only just over 6,000 young people are unemployed for more than a year, 90 per cent. fewer than in 1997. That constitutes a transformation of the system. Moreover, out-of-work benefits are down by £1 million overall. We have transformed the system: we have fewer people unemployed than at any time since the 1970s, and more people in work than ever before. The hon. Gentleman should recognise that rather than dog-whistling on immigration.

Hugh Bayley: The question from the hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) covers the gamut of out-of-work benefits. In my constituency, more than 6,000 people were unemployed in the mid-1980s; now the figure is less than a quarter of that, below 1,500. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it was the welfare-to-work schemes introduced by the Labour Government that brought the figure down, and that that is most likely to continue if we retain a Labour Government?

James Purnell: I certainly agree with the last part of my hon. Friend's question. He is absolutely right: the number of people on jobseeker's allowance has more than halved. That is because we have an active welfare state which requires more from people after three months, after six months and after a year, and which I am glad to see that the Opposition are now trying to copy.

Jennifer Willott: Both the Government and the Conservatives recently announced proposals to enforce tough new measures on working-age benefit claimants, including boot camps and compulsory work programmes. Those proposals have been widely criticised by child poverty campaigners who argue that they represent a revival of workhouse rules, and that they show little regard for the consequences for child poverty.
	Does it concern the Government that they now appear to be uniting with the Conservatives in their disregard for the effect of their policies on child poverty, and can the Secretary of State assure me that the welfare reform Bill that we expect to be introduced in the next parliamentary Session will focus on reducing poverty?

James Purnell: I welcome the hon. Lady to her new position. I can certainly give her that assurance. The whole point of the welfare reforms that we are introducing is to reduce poverty. We have had no truck with talk of boot camps, although, as she will see when she examines the details of what the Conservatives announced last week, they were actually only reannouncing what we are already doing through the new deal.

James Clappison: The Secretary of State was all at sea when he replied to the original question from my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin). He said that it was not possible to assume a figure, but his answer did assume a figure in his financial forecast, and it is less than the figure that my hon. Friend cited as the Secretary of State's target. Meanwhile, according to the Government's own answers and in contradistinction to what the Secretary of State has said, unemployment among 16 to 24-year-olds has risen since the Government came to power, and some 5 million people are languishing on out-of-work benefits. On the subject of dog whistles, it was the Secretary of State's right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) who brought to light the fact that more than half the increase in employment in this country was due to jobs being given to migrant workers.
	Against that dismal background, is it not time for some fresh thinking and fresh policy, which this clapped-out Government are manifestly incapable of providing?

James Purnell: Let us take the 5 million figure that the hon. Gentleman gave. It includes carers—whom he says his party will not force back into work—severely disabled people, lone parents with very young children, and those who retire early. The Tories are using figures that are completely inconsistent. They themselves acknowledge that they would not want to return those people to work. What they should be considering are the JSA count, which is down by more than half, and the fact that, as I have said, only 6,000-odd young people are unemployed for more than a year.
	Rather than citing inconsistent figures, the Tories should start to cost their policies. The proposals that they announced last week would require at least hundreds of millions of pounds of extra spending, and would mean the cost of welfare going up, not down.

Pensioner Poverty

David Amess: What recent estimate he has made of the proportion of pensioners in poverty.

Mike O'Brien: In 1996-97, 2.9 million pensioners were living in relative poverty, after housing costs. Measures such as pension credit have helped reduce that number by over a million to 1.8 million in 2005-06. I have today placed in the Library a fact sheet containing projections of entitlement to pension credit and other income-related benefits, up to 2050.

David Amess: The Government have said that a small but important inaccuracy in the 2006-07 data is the reason for the delay in publishing the statistics for the percentage of pensioners who are living in poverty. Will the Minister enlarge upon that small inaccuracy and take the opportunity to refute firmly and absolutely the scurrilous suggestions that the figures could have been delayed because of the local elections, the mayoral elections and the Crewe and Nantwich by-election?

Mike O'Brien: It is a matter for the hon. Gentleman whether he wishes to describe as scurrilous the views of those on his own Front Bench. The DWP statisticians identified an inaccuracy in the statistical framework that led to some of the headline statistics being somewhat inaccurate. That was verified by the independent quality assessment of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and was looked at by Karen Dunnell, the national statistician. The view was taken that the inaccuracy had to be corrected. The new figures will be released on 10 June.

Gerald Kaufman: It is always essential constantly and regularly to improve the situation of pensioners, but will my hon. and learned Friend compare the situation now with that before the introduction of the winter fuel payment, which the Conservatives derided, of the free television licences and of pension credit? Will he remember the words of Aneurin Bevan, whose National Health Service Act the Conservatives voted against, "Why look into the crystal when you can read the book"?

Mike O'Brien: My right hon. Friend is entirely right. When we came into office, tens of thousands of pensioners were trying to scrape by on £69 a week. Not only that, the then Government had sought to double the VAT on fuel, which would have hit pensioners even harder. That is the record that we inherited and we have turned it around, taking more than 1 million pensioners out of poverty. The percentage of pensioners in absolute poverty has fallen by three quarters, from 32 per cent. in 1997 to 8 per cent. in 2005-06. I suspect that most people would regard that as a very good record compared with that of the previous Conservative Government.

Oliver Heald: If the situation is as marvellous as the Minister says, why has the number of pensioners going bankrupt gone up from 900 five years ago to 7,900 this year? Is not one of the reasons why those most in need of help are not getting it through the pension credit—as we warned at the time of its introduction—the fact that it is an over-complex system introduced by a Chancellor who is now the Prime Minister and is still getting it wrong?

Mike O'Brien: Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people in this country, and many in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, are in receipt of pension credit and are very grateful for the fact that rather than having to live on the £69 a week that he voted to support they are now able to get a minimum of £124 to ensure that they are not in dire poverty. We are the Government who have looked after pensioners while the Government supported by the hon. Gentleman not only wanted to double VAT on fuel, but kept large numbers of pensioners in poverty.

Gisela Stuart: The Minister is right to take no lessons on pensioner poverty from the Conservatives but given that fuel prices have a disproportionate impact on pensioners, could he say a little more about weekend newspaper reports that measures are to be brought in to give extra help, through winter fuel payments, to the poorest pensioners?

Mike O'Brien: It is certainly the case that the Government need to take steps to get energy companies to help the vulnerable with rising fuel bills this winter. Energy companies offered to increase funding on their social tariffs to £225 million over three years. We want to move quickly to help people with their fuel bills—that is a priority for us. The Government have made an offer to the fuel companies: to send out a mailshot or voucher for the energy suppliers to all people who are on pension credit, letting them know how they can get on to the lower social tariff and, thus, lower their fuel bills. We also want to ensure that pensioners get access to better insulation grants, and that, in the long-term, they can help to lower their fuel bills by fitting proper insulation. We are offering that facility, but we are also offering fuel companies the option to share our data on who is in deprivation—that would be done through a trusted intermediary, so that those data are secure—and, in that way, fuel companies can ensure that their social tariff is directed to those most in need.

Nigel Waterson: Can the Minister confirm that he has quietly dropped the target originally set by the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor for maximising the take-up of pension credit? What estimate has the Minister made of the additional number of pensioners who will be thrown into poverty as a result of that decision? Is it not adding insult to injury for hard-pressed UK pensioners, who live in one of the EU countries where pensioners are most likely to fall into poverty?

Mike O'Brien: As a result of the steps that we have taken, particularly on pension credit, this country's pensioners are, on balance, less likely to be in poverty either than they were under the hon. Gentleman's Government or in respect of any other proportion of the population at the moment.
	News of the removal of this target bizarrely appeared in today's  The Daily Telegraph, but the measure was announced in 2006 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton) and it has been raised several times in Select Committee—this is so old that it is not even old news, as the targets changed some time ago. Four out of five of those entitled to guaranteed credit are now receiving it, and this Government are committed to getting more people on to pension credit. Our new target on pension credit, which has been recently increased, focuses on successful applications, instead of case load.

Child Care

Karen Buck: What recent assessment he has made of the effect on the uptake of child care of methods of paying for it.

Anne McGuire: Annual expenditure on child care under the child care element of tax credits was just under £1.2 billion in 2006-07. Jobcentre Plus is actively involved in improving the take-up of formal child care by its customers, and Jobcentre Plus advisers routinely discuss formal child care with all parents.

Karen Buck: Good quality child care is not only enriching for children, but essential for parents who want to combine parenting with work. The Government have had real success in recent years through investing in child care, particularly for three and four-year-olds, as has been evident in my constituency and across the country. Does my hon. Friend accept that there are problems in the system of paying for child care, particularly when it comes to older children? That was borne out in the recent study by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Is it time that the DCSF, the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions got together to work on a new package to replace the child care tax credit for older children and their families, so that holiday schemes and out-of-school provision can be—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must stop the hon. Lady.

Anne McGuire: My hon. Friend must be congratulated on constantly raising child care issues and on advising the Government as to how to improve uptake. She has alerted us to some issues, as have other organisations, in particular the higher level of up-front costs, which can act as a real barrier to some parents. She will know that from April 2008, we have been examining, in London, how we can pay those up-front costs. Of course, we want to examine every avenue to improve the system and to ensure that parents who want to move into work can get the wrap-around child care that they need. Our Department will work closely with the other Departments she mentioned to ensure that that happens.

Anne McIntosh: Is the Minister disappointed that the figures show that take-up has gone down dramatically and that the much vaunted free nursery place system has done nothing except shroud nursery schools in red tape and additional bureaucracy? More people seeking such child care use family members such as grandparents.

Anne McGuire: I am astonished that the hon. Lady uses the words "shrouded in red tape". I would have thought that she would welcome the fact that we have set safety standards and that we ensure that young children put into the care of nurseries and pre-school groups are properly cared for. It would embarrass me to have to defend the record that her Government left us in 1997, as we now have 10 times more child care places than we had then. That is a record that the hon. Lady should be ashamed of.

Terry Rooney: My hon. Friend will be aware of the disproportionate costs of child care for disabled children. In the Treasury review of child care tax credit, will she, as Minister for disabled people, make representations on that important issue?

Anne McGuire: My hon. Friend knows that Aiming High for Disabled Children has included an additional resource of £35 million up to 2011 to improve access to child care. We also have the new supporting access to child care project. In many local authorities, disabled children are supported successfully in mainstream child care, and I am sure that my hon. Friend, as Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, has seen many examples of that. We need to break down the barriers that parents with disabled children face in accessing good quality child care.

Philip Hollobone: What encouragement is given, and financial incentives offered, to parents who wish to stay at home to bring up their pre-school children?

Anne McGuire: We have expanded maternity leave and introduced paternity leave. We are looking at ways in which we can support parents through access to child care, with—currently—12 and a half hours free child care a week, which will increase to 15 hours. The hon. Gentleman has to realise that we can support parents in a mixture of ways, whether they choose to go out to work or to stay at home. The record of this Government stands up to scrutiny, especially compared with the record of the Administration whom he supported.

Ann Cryer: Does my hon. Friend agree that the form of support that single parents most appreciate is provided not by her Department but by extended schools? Such support reduces single parents' anxiety because it means that they can go to work and earn money while their children are at school, and need not depend on public support.

Anne McGuire: My hon. Friend is right. It is often the periods before and after school that are crucial to giving parents the confidence that their children are being looked after, and that is why extended school programmes, with wrap-around care from 8 am to 6 pm—which will be rolled out across England and Wales over the next couple of years—are crucial.

Child Poverty

Alistair Burt: What assessment he has made of the effect of family breakdown on child poverty.

James Plaskitt: In many cases, the break-up of families can lead to lower incomes and a greater risk of children living in poverty. So, we have a strong focus on supporting lone parents into work. The number of children in poverty in lone parent families has reduced by around 200,000 children. The risk of a child in such a household being in poverty has fallen from 46 per cent. to 35 per cent.
	Improvements to the Child Support Agency mean that a record £1 billion of maintenance is now flowing to children. Our new reforms of the child maintenance system will lift a further 100,000 children out of poverty.

Alistair Burt: The Department's website continues to suggest that it sees family breakdown more as a symptom of child poverty than as a cause. If the Minister is changing that impression, that would be welcomed. Does he agree that the Department is somewhat hamstrung by playing down the impact of family breakdown? If so, can he find a way out of that trap so as to respond positively to the comments of people such as Mr. Justice Coleridge who has 37 years of experience in the family court and who said last month:
	"High sounding declarations about taking children out of poverty are all well and good but where are the necessary investments in research and support for family life?"

James Plaskitt: The hon. Gentleman will know that there are many reasons why families end up in breakdown. The obligation on us is to ensure that when families encounter that, support is available. That is why, for example, one of the most important things that we can ensure when a family splits up is that the parent who continues to care for the children gets a decent income coming into the household. That is why programmes that support lone parents as they go back to work are so important. As the hon. Gentleman will know from his history of involvement with the subject, when couples separate it is crucial that maintenance flows to support the children. That is why we are making a big investment in the CSA, which is now collecting a record £1 billion of maintenance, as I have said.
	Another thing that is coming in, which I hope that the hon. Gentleman will welcome, is the child maintenance options service whereby for the first time couples moving towards separation will have information and support provided objectively and independently, for free, to help them to deal with that. Independent support and advice, on subjects from across the range of areas for which this Department is responsible, are available to assist couples.

Ian Lucas: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most insidious causes of family breakdown is mass unemployment? Will he therefore pay little regard to any Government who ever consider mass unemployment a price worth paying?

James Plaskitt: Certainly, the experience of mass unemployment and the break-up of communities led to the break-up of families. I do not think that there is any doubt about that. My hon. Friend is quite right to point out that a pro-employment policy is a pro-family policy and helps couples to stay together. He is right to point out that the policies that have seen unemployment fall dramatically, that have virtually eliminated long-term unemployment and that have restored employment in broken communities have contributed to supporting families. That is the result of policies that this Government have implemented.

David Taylor: Does the Minister agree that, with the odd rare exception, such as the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), to hear people on the Conservative Benches talk about the alleviation of poverty and their ideas in that regard is similar to hearing that King Herod has been appointed to a post in charge of child protection?

James Plaskitt: My hon. Friend always has his own way of putting such things. The important point, I think, is to ensure that we continue to pursue policies that support families as they face the variety of strains of modern life and try to achieve the right balance between work and family life. Through a range of policies pursued by this Department and others, we have put in place measures that back families, that support them and that help them to deal with the tensions of modern life.

Child Poverty

David Gauke: What progress he has made towards his target to halve child poverty by 2010.

Stephen Timms: Child poverty more than doubled under the previous Government to the worst rate in Europe. We have arrested and reversed the rising trend, with 600,000 children lifted out of poverty in the past decade. We reaffirmed on Budget day our commitment to halving child poverty by 2010 and eradicating it by 2020, and measures announced in last year's Budget, and since, are expected to lift 500,000 children above the poverty line.

David Gauke: Like the figures for pensioner poverty referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), publication of the figures for child poverty has been delayed. Given that the reason for the delay cited by the pensions Minister concerned a technical problem that, according to the DWP's technical note, relates to a relatively small number of people around pension age, can the Minister confirm that the yet to be released headline figures on child poverty have been known to the Government for some months?

Stephen Timms: No, I cannot confirm that. I do not know what the figures are. They are being reviewed in the way that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Pensions Reform described earlier, on the basis of a decision by the departmental statistician in consultation with the Government statistician and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. As my hon. and learned Friend said, the figures for households below the average income will be published on 10 June.

Julie Kirkbride: Can the Minister explain why the number of children in poverty in two-parent households went up from 21 to 23 per cent. last year?

Stephen Timms: We have made a decisive break with the disastrous policy of the Conservative party in government, for which even now addressing child poverty remains a vague aspiration. We have reduced the number of children in poverty from 3.4 million to 2.8 million. If we had left the policies as they were in 1997, the figure would be above 5 million by now. Measures in the last two Budgets and in the pre-Budget report will help further. They are expected to reduce child poverty by 500,000. We remain committed to the target. There was a very small increase last year. The overall impact has been very positive.

Occupation-related Illnesses

Tony Lloyd: What recent discussions he has had with the Health and Safety Executive on its programmes on occupation-related illnesses.

Anne McGuire: Ministers hold regular discussions with the chair of the Health and Safety Executive and its senior officials regarding the executive's programmes on occupation-related illnesses.

Tony Lloyd: Does my hon. Friend agree that, although everyone regrets the tragic deaths of 241 people in industrial accidents last year, the perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 people who die every year from occupational diseases—cancers and so on—nevertheless represent a problem on a much bigger scale? Can I have an assurance that the Health and Safety Executive will crack down on that and have the resources to ensure that we both educate and encourage prevention—for example, where diesel fumes are allowed to permeate the working space—to make sure that another generation in 10, 15 or 20 years' time will not die in that horrible way?

Anne McGuire: My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of deaths that sometimes occur a long time after people have ceased to work in a particular occupation. Of course, asbestosis accounts for about 4,000 deaths a year, which is the highest rate of any occupational health killer. I hope he recognises the importance of the hidden killer pilot that we rolled out in the north-west. It was not specifically aimed at diesel fumes, but it worked with tradesmen, particularly plumbers and electricians, to look at how they work in at-risk occupations. He is right to highlight the fact that the Health and Safety Executive, along with employers, employees and trade unions, needs to look at how we manage risk for the current work force and to ensure that those risks are reduced as much as possible.

Michael Clapham: The Minister will be aware that payments for certain industrial diseases, such as pneumoconiosis, changed on the demise of British Coal on 27 March 2004. Since then, there have been 3,300 new claims. I understand that only 300 of those new claimants have claimed benefit under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979. I understand that her Department did not put down the line the information that miners could now claim under the 1979 Act. Will she therefore look into the matter and ensure that, if it is shown that anyone has been disadvantaged by not being able to claim under the 1979 Act, they will allowed to make a new claim?

Anne McGuire: Of course, I will look at the points made by my hon. Friend, who has consistently and persistently promoted the cause of those miners who suffered as a result of working down the pits, and I will get back to him on that issue.

Andrew Miller: No Government have done more than this one to compensate those people who have suffered industrial health problems, such as coal miners, who were referred to by hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham). However, will my hon. Friend the Minister look again at the 1979 Act, as my hon. Friend has asked, and look beyond the coal mining population, because a constituent of mine from the building industry, along with a handful of other people, has been told that his only way forward is to seek judicial review of the Government? That does not seem to be a humane way to deal with someone who manifestly suffers from pneumoconiosis.

Anne McGuire: Obviously, if my hon. Friend gives me the details of his constituency case, I will look into it for him.

Benefits System

Kelvin Hopkins: What plans he has for simplifying the benefits system; and if he will make a statement.

Stephen Timms: Benefit simplification is important to our welfare reform programme, for example in the roll-out of the local housing allowance since April, in the introduction of the employment and support allowance in October, and in pensions reform from 2010. In the longer term, we are looking into the possibility of a single benefit for people of working age.

Kelvin Hopkins: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. I think that Britain is the only country in Europe where benefits are delivered through the agencies of three Departments. That makes the system complicated, expensive to administer, and difficult for claimants. Is it not time that we seriously considered giving responsibility for all benefits to one Department, namely his?

Stephen Timms: There is good co-operation between my Department and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs on tax credits, and between the Department and local authorities on housing benefit. A very good pilot in north Tyneside has shown excellent results, and we have now extended it to another half a dozen local authorities. My hon. Friend is right that there is good scope for co-operation, particularly with local authorities, in order to deliver benefits more quickly, and to deliver a better service.

Daniel Rogerson: Occasionally, complications in the system to do with benefits and allowances can impact on people doing voluntary work or holding particular offices in their community. I would very much like to discuss a constituent's case with the Secretary of State or one of his colleagues, and I should be grateful if he agreed to a meeting in which we could do that.

Stephen Timms: There certainly are a number of issues to do with volunteering and the benefit system. We have been considering them, and we have made good progress in recent months. If the hon. Gentleman would like to drop me a line, I will be happy to look at the case that he has in mind.

Joan Walley: I welcome the progress that my right hon. Friend the Minister has made in extending the 16-hour rule to Stoke-on-Trent, but further flexibility is needed. In particular, will he look at the situation faced by those on incapacity benefit who are anxious to gain skills and move into education and training, but who do not want to have to go on to jobseeker's allowance to do so, and will he get back to me on that, please?

Stephen Timms: I thank my hon. Friend for what she says. As she will know, under the employment and support allowance, which is being introduced from October, the arrangements for therapeutic work will be significantly different from those in place under incapacity benefit. If she looks at the new arrangements, she will find that there has been some welcome progress. If there are other points that she would like me to consider, I should be happy to have a conversation with her about them.

George Young: Does the Minister accept that one of the reasons for the low take-up of some benefits is the complexity of the application forms? Is that not another powerful reason for seeking to simplify the benefits system?

Stephen Timms: Of course the right hon. Gentleman is right. I am sure that he will therefore warmly welcome, as others have done, the introduction of the three-page application form for housing benefit and council tax benefit for people already receiving pension credit. That has been a big step forward, and we will be looking for others.

Child Maintenance

Sally Keeble: What steps he is taking to improve maintenance arrangements for children of non-resident parents; and if he will make a statement.

James Plaskitt: There are two key steps. First, we are improving the performance of the Child Support Agency. The agency now collects £200 million more, for 200,000 more children, than it did in the last year of operation before the improvement plan. Secondly, we will ultimately replace the agency with the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission to ensure even better support for children. The advances that we are making in that area continue to lift more children out of poverty.

Sally Keeble: Is my hon. Friend aware of the concerns raised by a community in my constituency about UK-born men who go abroad, get married, have families, and then return to the UK without making any arrangements at all for the family's maintenance? Does he agree that there is an obligation on non-resident parents to provide support for their children, even if the children are living abroad and are therefore outside the immediate reach of the Child Support Agency?

James Plaskitt: Those are rather unusual circumstances. I am aware that my hon. Friend has encountered them in her constituency, and I encourage her to write to me with the details of the cases, if she does not mind. I am happy to look into them a bit further. However, it has always been part of the regulations applying to the child support system that for a maintenance calculation to be made and enforced, all the parties have to be habitually resident in the UK. I think that that is not so in the case that she has encountered, and there would therefore be difficulties in pursuing the matter, but still, if she gives me more details about it, I will look further into it for her.

Angela Watkinson: Will the Minister be kind enough to look into the case of my constituent, Mrs. Faringdon, who has full-time care of her 14-year-old niece? The niece's child benefit is still being paid to her father, despite the fact that there is a non-molestation order against him. Mrs. Faringdon would like to apply for a permanent residency order for her niece, but has been told that no funding will be available to enable her to do that, and she is unable to fund the process herself. I should be most grateful if he looked into the matter for me.

James Plaskitt: I would be more than happy for the hon. Lady to write to me with further details of the case, and I undertake to look into it. The normal rule in relation to child benefit is that it goes to the parent who has the majority of care of the child, and that is a fairly firm rule. However, the case sounds complex, so if she writes to me with further information about it, I will look into it and try to help her constituent out.

Vincent Cable: Can the Minister explain and justify the practice whereby people in emergency financial need seeking loans from the social fund are no longer being interviewed, but are required to access a telephone helpline, which is invariably engaged or unobtainable and, at best, provides a highly impersonal and unsatisfactory service?

James Plaskitt: The fact of the matter is that the telephone helpline has been introduced. I accept that there were difficulties with it initially; we have been clear about that. A great deal of extra investment has gone into it and more staff have been transferred to the helpline. I think the hon. Gentleman knows that the latest statistics show that it is performing well, calls are being answered swiftly, calls are not being lost, and support is being given in the same way as it was on a face-to-face basis. I can also confirm to him that if any of his constituents still require a face-to-face interview and do not want to proceed with a telephone application, they are entitled to ask for a face-to-face interview and it will be provided.

Topical Questions

Harry Cohen: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

James Purnell: We want to give children the best possible start in life. Responsible parenting is important to provide children with the security and confidence that they need to thrive. The moment that a child's birth is registered is of enormous significance, both practical and symbolic. It is an opportunity for public acknowledgment of the responsibilities of parenthood, where both mother and father can commit to their role in nurturing and supporting their child, yet as many as 45,000 to 50,000 birth registrations in the UK each year do not include the name of the father.
	I can therefore announce today that the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Children, Schools and Families are publishing the White Paper "Joint Birth Registration: Recording Responsibility" in order to ensure that wherever possible both parents are named on a child's birth certificate. We propose that joint birth registration should become a legal requirement for all unmarried parents, unless that is decided by the registrar to be impossible, impracticable or unreasonable. The measures will continue to protect vulnerable women and children, but allow a mother to ensure that a father acknowledges his responsibility for his offspring. Equally, they will ensure that unmarried fathers will get the right to have a say in their child's life.

Harry Cohen: I welcome the Government's proposal for joint registration of a birth, and I note those exceptions. It is important that both parents, fathers included, are on the registration of a birth, but if there is a contestation about who the father is, could there be a system of revised registration, perhaps at a later date, to take into account the results of any DNA tests that might have taken place?

James Purnell: That is something that we should look at. The system of paternity testing is there for parents to be able to establish paternity accurately. I am glad that my hon. Friend welcomes the moves that we are introducing. It is important to change the default system so that both parents are registered, for unmarried couples as well as for married ones.

Alistair Burt: I appreciate the answer that the Minister gave to my previous question and the way in which he put it, but I do not think he quite got the point. All the financial support that goes to people after family and relationship breakdown is not worth nearly as much as support and investment given before the break-up. There is mounting evidence that such support, in all its many forms, is needed to prevent relationships from breaking up, but there is little evidence to suggest that the Government have yet understood that. Can the Minister help the House a little more?

James Plaskitt: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's argument that no support is going through. All the measures that we have introduced since 1997 in support of families, especially families on low incomes, who have been the principal gainers from Budget and benefit changes, mean that more support is going into households. That support helps to sustain the family, helps the family to deal with the challenges of the day, and is therefore in support of the family. Tax policies and benefit policies, as well as child maintenance policies, have been very much pro-family and continue to be so.

Mark Lazarowicz: Many of the services offered by the Minister's Department have to be accessed through phone lines. However, as my hon. Friend will know, an increasing number of people do not have land lines; they just have mobile phones. Accessing the Department's services can cost such people much more than is paid by those who can use local services or freephone lines. What will the Department do to take account of the development that I have mentioned as it tries to make its services as accessible as possible to the public?

James Plaskitt: First, there is an array of freephone lines, as my hon. Friend knows. If claimants contact us via a mobile phone, we will always agree to call them back at a predetermined time. Those claimants only have to make the one, brief initial request for a telephone exchange with us; we will then make the call back. In such circumstances, we can help people who have access only through mobile phones.

Chris Grayling: I join the Secretary of State in welcoming the new Lib Dem spokesman to her position; it seems a long time since we debated against each other on Merton council.
	We welcome today's White Paper. Its direction is right and the Secretary of State will have our support, although there will no doubt be debate over the detail. Will he tell us exactly what the relationship is between him, the Department for Work and Pensions and Mr. Phil Collins?

James Purnell: I certainly can; I have enjoyed watching this story. First, the press said, wrongly, that Mr. Collins was my special adviser; then they said, wrongly, that he had been sacked. They then launched a great inquisition about why he was not sacked in the first place. To reassure the hon. Gentleman, I should say that Mr. Collins has not charged for or been paid for any work at the Department for Work and Pensions and that he is not employed by the DWP. We do play football together, however—and we are becoming an increasingly slow central defensive partnership.

Chris Grayling: I am none the less slightly puzzled by the Secretary of State's answer. We are talking about the gentleman who wrote an article last week saying:
	"In the drama of British politics a Labour tragedy is unfolding."
	What we do know is that Mr. Collins has been writing speeches for the Secretary of State that have been edited by officials in the Department; there has clearly been some kind of working relationship. Can the Secretary of State explain that? Can he also say what conversations he has had with the Prime Minister in the past few days about the work that Mr. Collins has been doing?

James Purnell: As I said, it could not be simpler: Mr. Collins has not been paid by the DWP for any work. It is interesting that after another six weeks of thinking, the hon. Gentleman has yet again resorted to trivia and refused to engage in any debate about welfare policy. The very clear reason for that is that he knows that the minute there is any scrutiny of his proposals, people will see that they are expensive, that they will increase the cost of welfare and that, at best, all they will do is copy things that we are doing already.

Tony Lloyd: May we get back to real issues, which affect my constituents? Sadly, my constituents still suffer the highest rate of child poverty in the country. Do my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench accept that getting lone parents into work and supporting them is probably the most important thing that we can do to tackle the impact of poverty in our society? In that context, would not the abolition of Sure Start—one of the cost-cutting proposals from the Conservative Front Bench—be a tragedy in areas such as the centre of Manchester?  [Interruption.]

Stephen Timms: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I ask Members on the Benches to be quiet? They can be noisy at half-past 3.

Stephen Timms: My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) is absolutely right: the abolition of Sure Start would be a disaster in respect of addressing child poverty. The discussions and ideas coming from Conservative Front-Bench Members show how little importance they attach to that whole question.
	The progress that we have made on reducing child poverty is very welcome. However, we need to do a great deal more. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: helping lone parents into work is perhaps the most important of the initiatives that we have in hand. Changes to lone parent benefit later this year will help. What has been borne out by my visits to Sure Start centres is that the personal help provided to lone parents at those centres is also making a big difference.

David Amess: With £4.6 billion of benefits going unclaimed every year, Age Concern's excellent report, "Just what the doctor ordered", has suggested that health care settings are an excellent way to publicise benefits. As the architect of the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000, I am concerned that the Government will not meet their target of eliminating fuel poverty by 2010, so will they accept Age Concern's report?

Mike O'Brien: We will certainly give it full and due consideration. One of the key things that we are doing is taking real steps to ensure that we deal with some of the issues surrounding fuel poverty, particularly for pensioners. Age Concern has worked with us in doing that, and I am grateful to it for that. One of our key proposals is the new data-sharing initiative. For years, the fuel companies have said, "We are prepared to provide social tariffs and lower bills for those who are on low incomes, but we don't know who they are." In the past, DWP has not been prepared to share that data. In the next six weeks, I will table a new amendment to the Pensions Bill that will enable us to data share with the power companies through a trusted intermediary. Pensioners will be able to opt out if they do not want to have their data shared. We hope that that will be a first step towards dealing with some of the problems that Age Concern has identified.

Lindsay Hoyle: I welcome what my hon. and learned Friend says about helping pensioners with fuel bills. Will he look at extending the franchise that we gave to pensioners aged over 75 to get free TV licences to ensure that all old-age pensioners will benefit from that measure?

Mike O'Brien: Over-75s' TV licences, and indeed under-75s' TV licences, are a matter for another Department. However, we are anxious to ensure that we continue to take steps to deal with the issues of pensioner poverty that this Government are committed to tackling. That is why we introduced pension credit in 2003 and have since taken initiatives to increase it substantially. We want to ensure, too, that some of our steps on fuel poverty deal with the problems that pensioners are facing with their fuel bills.

Philip Hollobone: Organisations such as Kettering welfare rights advisory service and Kettering citizens advice bureau help to secure hundreds of thousands of pounds of benefits for residents in and around Kettering. Why can such organisations do such good work when Government officials apparently cannot?

Stephen Timms: There has long been a very valuable role for citizens advice bureaux; that is why Citizens Advice is supported and funded by the Government. It does a great job up and down the country, and that is why we will continue to support it.

Vincent Cable: In using the benefits system to compensate the remaining 1 million losers from the loss of the 10p tax rate, why are the Government using working tax credits, which are based on gross income and therefore cannot help, rather than housing benefit and council tax benefit, which are based on net income and can help? Is it that they do not understand their own benefits system?

James Purnell: The hon. Gentleman gets a whole Question Time to himself to ask these questions of the Chancellor, so I am sure that he will want to do so. However, I would have thought that he would welcome the cut in tax and increase in allowances that we have brought in for people not only on low incomes but on middle incomes.

Bill Wiggin: The Department's report for 2008 shows that the Government have not met three public service agreement targets and have encountered slippage on no fewer than nine. Targets 1a, 1b and 1c all relate to child poverty. Is not that an example of a failing Government, and who does the Minister think is responsible?

James Purnell: One thing is absolutely clear: we will not take any lectures from the Conservatives until they commit to the target on child poverty and come up with a single policy to reduce it.

Tim Boswell: Now that rising food and fuel prices are putting pressure week by week on the incomes particularly of low-income people, do the Government have any plans in advance of the next scheduled revaluation of benefits to introduce interim measures to ameliorate that?

James Purnell: Not that I am aware of.

Peter Bone: The latest official figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 591,000 people arrived in the UK in 2006. How many of those were gainfully employed?

Stephen Timms: Immigration into the UK over the past few years has left us in a position where more people are in work in Britain than ever before—above 29.5 million for the first time ever—and where we have the lowest number of people claiming unemployment benefit since the mid-1970s. That is an extraordinarily strong economic performance, and part of the explanation for it is the contribution made by people coming to work from overseas.

New Member

Mr. Speaker: Will the Members wishing to take their seats please come to the Table?
	 The following Member took and subscribed the Oath :
	Edward Timpson, Crewe and Nantwich.

Planning Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
	That the Order of 10th December 2007 (Planning Bill (Programme)) be varied as follows—
	1. Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Order shall be omitted.
	2. Proceedings on consideration and Third Reading shall be concluded in two days.
	3. Proceedings on consideration shall be taken on each of those days as shown in the following Table and in the order so shown.
	4. Each part of the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in relation to it in the second column of the table.
	
		
			  First day 
			  Proceedings  Time for conclusion of proceedings 
			 New Clauses, and amendments to Clauses, relating to Parts 3 and 4, New Clauses, and amendments to Clauses, relating to Part 7, New Clauses, and amendments to Clauses, relating to Part 8, and New Clauses, and amendments to Clauses, relating to correction of errors in development consent decisions or changes to, or revocation of, orders granting development consent. 7.30 p.m. 
			 New Clauses, and amendments to Clauses, relating to Part 2. The moment of interruption. 
			  Second day 
			 New Clauses, and amendments to Clauses, relating to Chapter 2 of Part 9, and New Clauses, and amendments to Clauses, relating to Part 11. 7.00 p.m. 
			 New Clauses, and amendments to Clauses, relating to functions of the Infrastructure Planning Commission or the Secretary of State in relation to applications for orders granting development consent, and remaining proceedings on consideration. One hour before the moment of interruption. 
		
	
	5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on the second day.— [John Healey.]

Jacqui Lait: It is a pleasure to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Edward Timpson). It is sad, however, that the first business of the House that he will see is a programme motion under which the Government seek to hide from the demands of democracy.
	The programme motion is a fig leaf to cover the embarrassment of the huge number of new clauses, new schedules and amendments—28 new clauses, six new schedules and 218 amendments. I acknowledge that some result from work we did in Committee and subsequent discussions, but after 10 years I would have thought that the Government had enough experience to get a Bill substantially right the first time. Many of the proposals are substantial and we need time to explore them. The groupings on the development consent regime are doubtless fascinating; they demand exploration and provoke many questions. However, they should have been introduced in Committee and not on Report, when we have little time to explore their effect or decide whether they improve the Bill.
	More importantly, the programme motion has been used to hide matters of fundamental principle. The Bill is profoundly undemocratic because it denies Parliament a substantive vote on national planning statements. Those statements, which we support in principle, cover the replacement of our crumbling infrastructure, whose effect we experienced with last week's near power blackout, and with the Prime Minister's conversion to more nuclear power stations. Where was he when the subject was kicked into the long grass by his predecessor—disappearing like Macavity? If such difficult decisions are to be made acceptable to the British public, we believe that Parliament should decide, not the Government. The debate on that takes place later this evening, as does the debate on climate change, which is also high up the political agenda. I hope that those debates will attract many participants, but it is a scandal, given how few Government Back Benchers are present, that such crucial issues are being consigned to the equivalent of the graveyard slot.
	Next week, the even more important issue of the unelected and undemocratic infrastructure planning commission will also be consigned to the graveyard slot. Perhaps that is not unconnected with early-day motions 603 to 606, all of which were tabled by Government Back Benchers, and with amendments from the very same people, who have consistently and honourably opposed this dilution of democratic rights throughout the progress of the Bill.
	The programme motion is designed to allow the Government to hide from the British public and from their responsibility to take the tough decisions that they were elected to take. On those grounds, we will vote against it.

Daniel Rogerson: I had some disagreements with the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) in Committee, but on this occasion I agree with her. Although some of the large number of Government amendments that we are being asked to consider are responses to the issues raised in Committee, as she said, they will take up a great deal of time that may have been of value to hon. Members who did not have the opportunity to serve on the Committee, but who want to debate some of the substantive issues. They include environmental concerns, which a number of organisations have raised, how national statements will address such concerns and, crucially, the scrutiny of those statements by this place and perhaps the other place.
	Although it was good of the Minister to take the opportunity to explain to Opposition Front Benchers the Government's intention in respect of some provisions, Members who want to pay due attention to the important matters contained in the Bill—this is their first and indeed only opportunity to do so in detail—will want greater time to do so. In fact, the restrictions placed on some of those key discussions by the large amount of time that we shall be spending on other issues will be a disadvantage to hon. Members who wish to contribute. Therefore, I concur with the hon. Lady that the programme motion unfortunately does not do justice to the subject at hand.

John Redwood: I rise to support the opposition to the programme motion. It is another travesty of democracy that we should be expected to be allocated time on a range of sensitive and important constitutional matters about how something as crucial as planning should be decided. It may be that there are provisions for which the time allocated by Ministers is too great. However, there will undoubtedly be occasions on which the issue is so important that many more Members would like to join in and to have the opportunity to be here, if only a more sensible time had been chosen for considering such matters.
	I urge Ministers to think again, even now. It may be that we can consider the Bill in the total amount of time that they have made available, but they should allow the House to decide how that time is best spent and how the priorities should be reflected in that debate. Often, when we give people greater freedom, they show greater responsibility, and we get a better quality of debate that concentrates more on the issues that matter.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) powerfully made the case that the Bill will set up an unelected quango to make extremely important decisions, whereas I and many of my constituents believe that there should be a stronger democratic input. I would add that many of my constituents feel that there should be more influence from the locality, not less. They do not feel that their local views are properly considered under the current process, because there is so much centralising, railroading and regional, overarching influence. The situation will be even worse if we have an unelected national quango making important decisions and forcing consequential decisions on local authorities once the main decision has been taken. We need proper time to debate safeguards and guarantees for local empowerment and influence over such decisions.
	I am not one who wishes to stop every new development, and I certainly am not one who thinks that we need to resist all the important infrastructure and energy projects that this country is crying out for. The reason why such projects have been delayed in the past decade is not so much the planning system, but the Government, who have singularly failed to have a positive energy or transport policy. They have singularly failed to provide a framework in which the private sector can operate, or to make public funding available for public projects, so that that infrastructure can be put in place. They have wasted 11 years, and now come forward with this fig leaf of a Bill, saying that it was the planning system that was wrong. Eleven years into a Labour Government—somewhere near their end, we hope—they have decided that they can reform the planning permission system to try to accelerate the projects that they have prevented by chopping and changing, dithering and delaying and going to endless consultation on all the infrastructure issues to do with energy and transport.
	I also wish to condemn the guillotine because the Bill contains a taxation measure that will provide the opportunity, through secondary regulation, to set up levies on development projects. I shall not go into whether that is good or bad, as I hope that we will have time to discuss that properly within the limits of the timetable motion, but such a tax measure is surely of some importance. It therefore deserves prime-time debate and as much time as the House thinks necessary to consider the whys and wherefores of the matter. It might restrict, defer or delay development, and we need the opportunity to probe, test and examine that case.
	Above all, we need enough time to show that we are sick and tired of local communities being overridden by national and regional planners. We are sick and tired of mock consultations that go on for too long and do not take local opinion seriously. The Opposition do not want more delay, and we would welcome any sensible measure that reduced how long it takes to make important planning decisions, but the system has to understand the power and passion of local feeling and must find a way of coming to just decisions having taken those feelings seriously. The system proposed in the Bill would not do that, and it is a further democratic travesty that it is going to be railroaded through on a guillotine that will not leave enough time to debate some of the most sensitive issues and that might allow too much time for other issues.
	I ask the Government to think again, please. They are so unpopular because they have damaged our Parliament and undermined our democracy. Do they really want to stand arraigned again today for a further body blow against our democracy? This is an attack on the right of our local communities to be heard on planning and an attack on the right of this House to examine serious measures for more public spending, more quangos and more taxation. The Government are in the dock, and they will be even more unpopular if they insist on driving the measure through.

Nicholas Winterton: My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) is absolutely right. Indeed, the contributions of all those who have spoken in this short debate have been very appropriate. He referred particularly to the importance of people having a say locally about important strategic decisions that will impact on the communities in which they live. If we take that away by setting up an undemocratic bureaucracy, how will we ensure that local people have a real say?
	My real purpose for rising is to say that what is happening today—putting through a programme motion that allows only two days' debate on a very important Bill—is an abuse of this House. I say to the Minister for Local Government, for whom I have considerable affection—he and I have met on several occasions regarding local issues and have found common ground—that he must surely accept that a Bill that will take away from Members of the House the opportunity to represent the interests of their constituents and the areas that they represent is a serious blow to democracy.
	The purpose of Back Benchers is to hold the Government of the day to account and to scrutinise properly the legislation that they put before the House and for which they seek the House's approval. If there is inadequate time in which to do scrutinise it, that cannot be right as it does not permit this House to do what it is here to do.
	Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, I hope that even at this late stage the Government will review this timetable motion. It is not too late. If they value democracy, and if they are prepared to listen to people, they will know that the Bill is unpopular. It is even being opposed by some Labour Members, as well as by the Opposition parties whose duty it is to oppose it.
	In recent years, I have taken a huge interest in the processes of the House and in our ability to do the job that we are here to do—namely, to scrutinise legislation and to hold the Government of the day to account. This is not the way to encourage people to have confidence in the House, and it is certainly not the way to encourage them to vote. The Government say that they want people to vote and to be involved, and they claim to support localism. The contents of the programme motion and much of the Bill certainly do not illustrate that.
	I ask the Minister to think again and to respond to the genuine concerns of the Opposition. Some of the opposition to the Bill is coming from those on his own side of the House. We want this place to be respected. We want people out there to have confidence in the integrity of the House of Commons and in its ability to do the job that Members are here to do. I appreciate the difference between Front Benchers and Back Benchers. I have been here on the Back Benches for 37 years— [ Interruption. ] Not long enough? It is an important role, and I ask the Minister and the Government of the day to respect that fact.

Angela Watkinson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the inordinate amount of Government amendments that have appeared on Report means that the Bill is barely recognisable compared with the one that went into Committee? This cannot be a good way for Parliament to conduct its business.

Nicholas Winterton: In another role, I have made the observation that the Government of the day—not only Labour Governments, but my own party in government—have from time to time brought forward massive tranches of new clauses, new schedules and amendments to Bills. On many occasions, that has been done on Report. In the past, it was probably tolerated because there was no programme motion relating to remaining stages or Report. Now, we have programme motions that greatly limit the time that the House has to debate important strategic legislation.
	This is important legislation. It will introduce a significant change to the way in which we deal with planning matters, which will impact on the people of this country. We have already heard mention of the number of new clauses and amendments that are being introduced on Report, when we have very limited time to discuss them. I must ask the Minister sincerely—perhaps he will think about this in the early hours of the morning—to consider whether this is the proper way to deal with legislation. Or are the Government simply determined to get their legislation through at all costs, however it is done and however democratic it is? Surely we deserve better from this Government.

Paul Truswell: It is not my intention to detain the House by using rhetorical flourishes like those that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) and the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). I simply want to say to my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government that he will be aware of the tremendous amount of concern among Back-Bench Labour Members about key aspects of the Bill, not least those relating to the role, status and powers of the infrastructure planning commission and to the mechanisms for public engagement in planning inquiries on major infrastructure projects. It should therefore come as no surprise to him that there is tremendous concern among Members—many of whom he has met to discuss these issues on a number of occasions—that these matters are to be compressed into a two-hour period next Monday night, which will itself be further truncated by any votes on the preceding group of amendments. I therefore hope that he understands why a number of my hon. Friends and I will be unable to support him in the Lobby when the House divides on this motion.

Elfyn Llwyd: I support what has just been said. Frankly, I am astonished at the programme motion. Having served on the Public Bill Committee, I am beginning to wonder what on earth was the point of doing so. According to my mathematics, 110 Government amendments, 20 Government new clauses and several new schedules have been tabled. Really, that is a travesty of the whole process.
	If we are talking about modernisation, as we often are, we should consider the fact that we now have a procedure whereby we take evidence from the public—the pre-legislative procedure. Typically, the Government take no notice whatever of what is said to them in the consultation process. It is a fig leaf. It is demeaning to the Government, as they will see if they think about it, and demeaning to every Member of the House that we are being pushed to deal with such an important Bill in the matter of minutes that the Government have deigned to allow for debate. It is absolutely atrocious.

John Redwood: I have a lot of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman, who has given his time to this absurd procedure. Will he confirm that in Committee Ministers gave no ground on any sensible proposal suggested from the Opposition side, showing that they are not really engaged and that they do not care?

Elfyn Llwyd: The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. In some instances, when matters were being pushed, there was support from local government organisations, planning organisations, professional bodies—everybody outside who really knows about the subject. Nevertheless, everything was refused. During the Committee process, I felt— [Interruption.] The Minister shakes his head. One minor comma here or there was changed, but nothing much more.
	To say that the Government were going to engage in the process is absolutely untrue. It calls into question the Public Bill Committee process if we cannot have reasonable debates and the Government responding properly to points that have been raised—not simply by Members, but by experts who brief Members. That is the important point. They are the people out there who will have to deal with these matters.
	We are dealing with such things as new taxation procedure and the IPC, which appears to be highly undemocratic, and the Bill is important and rather drastic, so for the Government to come back and give us only minutes to deal with it is unacceptable. I for one will vote with the Opposition on this matter.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to have caught your eye, Mr. Speaker.
	I used to take part in debates such as this with the late and much-lamented right hon. Eric Forth. He railed against these timetable motions, which this Government invented when they came to office in 1997. I have not spoken in one of these debates lately, until this one. I am speaking—I have been driven to do so—because the motion is such a travesty of democracy, for two reasons. Some of the matters that I shall discuss have been alluded to by my hon. Friends.
	First, my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), who spoke for the Welsh nationalists, as well as the Minister for Local Government and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda), who are sitting on the Treasury Bench, spent 18 sittings in Committee, taking evidence during three and subjecting the Bill to so-called line-by-line examination in the remaining 15. So, one wonders what on earth they have been doing since the now Chief Secretary to the Treasury announced in a written statement on 9 October 2007—some eight months ago—that the Bill was to be introduced to the House.
	Why have Ministers had to come forward today with 215 amendments, 28 new clauses and six new schedules? What on earth have they and their Department been doing? It is a complete travesty and a complete insult to the House to introduce a Bill so inadequately written that it has to be subjected to such major amendment. Indeed, it is an insult to the members of the Committee who debated the Bill line by line and are now having to debate a completely different Bill.
	The second reason why I am moved to speak on the timetable motion is the fact that we are elected to represent our constituents and to produce good law. We are not elected to take away their rights. Their rights include the right to have their say in the planning process and the appeal process, and the right to be heard. The Bill will not only affect those involved in the planning process; property owners will be affected by the compulsory purchase provisions, as will become clear when we discuss the second group of amendments and new clauses. I hope that the Minister will consider ordinary citizens' right to have their say, not just during the proceedings of the infrastructure planning commission, to which one of the major groups of amendments refers, but on national policy statements and compulsory acquisition. If the Government railroad the Bill through in its present form, the citizens of this country will rue the day that they ever did it.
	I was involved in the first planning Bill, whose Committee stage had to be reconvened because the Government had got it so badly wrong the first time. An entirely new Committee had to be formed to deal with that Bill. I wonder whether the Government will now end up in the courts time after time, dealing with complaints from ordinary citizens whose rights have been taken away and who have not been given an opportunity to be heard.

Nicholas Winterton: Will my hon. Friend support my suggestion to the Procedure Committee that it should examine the way in which programme motions are working and conduct a full review of the procedure, leading to an important report?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. The Committee should examine not just programme motions, but the way in which the House does its business. If a Committee is to include a pre-legislative scrutiny element—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going too far. It is fine if he sticks to the subject of the programme motion, but he should not allow his speech to become any wider.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
	The House will need to examine its procedures, including those applying to programme motions. The programme motion relating to this Bill does not allow adequate time for what the Government are asking us to do, given the number of amendments, new clauses and new schedules that they have tabled.

Patrick Cormack: I did not intend to speak, but I shall say a few words.
	When the late Douglas Jay stated all those years ago that the gentleman in Whitehall knows best, he was roundly and rightly derided by those who held to the philosophy that we share on these Benches, but at least he said it in an age when Parliament stood for something. When Bills were put before the House of Commons in that Parliament of 1945, and in every Parliament until that of 1997, they were discussed properly and adequately. Sometimes Governments resorted to guillotine motions, but each had to be introduced at the Dispatch Box and discussed not for 45 minutes but in a full debate, generally finishing at 10 pm and always lasting for at least three hours. When a Conservative Government were in power between 1979 and 1997, a number of us felt that we were going too far with guillotine motions, and on occasion some of us voted against them. Nevertheless, those motions specified an allocation of time that was generous in the extreme compared with what we have today.

Robert Key: Will my hon. Friend confirm that no Committee of the House would consider a guillotine motion until it had sat for 100 hours?

Patrick Cormack: I was going to make that very point. I thank my hon. Friend for making it for me. Yes, guillotine motions were not introduced— either by dear Michael Foot when he was Leader of the House and dealt with five in a day, or by any member of my party—unless the Committee stage had almost ground to a halt because of the amount of time allotted to the Bill in question. The guillotine motion had to be justified, had to be advocated and had to be defended, and it was voted on. We now have the automatic programme motion, which represents, in effect, the emasculation of this place.
	I sometimes wonder what is the point of this place. If I did not, deep down in my bones, believe in it, I would think "I have had enough". I stay here only because I want to see the day when Parliament is once again able to behave as a civilised Parliament in a civilised nation. It is utterly disgraceful.
	I have a fond personal regard for the Minister, a decent man who is being made to do a very indecent thing today—to defend the indefensible. No one who truly believes in parliamentary democracy or that it is our duty critically to examine and scrutinise measures brought before us by the Government of the day can possibly defend what is now being done. It would be bad enough if this were just an ordinary Report stage, because the time given is not great, but as a number of colleagues have mentioned, this is effectively a new Bill, rewritten by the amendments listed on the Order Paper. Most of those amendments will not be discussed at all, although some will be referred to. I support strongly the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) that the Procedure Committee should look at the issue of programming.
	I make one final point, to support the brave words of the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell). I know what it is like, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield, to speak out and vote against the Government of the day who in general measure one supports. It is not easy. But the fact that the hon. Gentleman, briefly and eloquently, said that he and a number of his colleagues could not support the motion ought to make the Minister realise that he has gone too far.
	The Bill makes radical changes to our planning system and takes power away from the people, rather than giving it to them—something the Prime Minister is always harping on about. It takes power away, this very afternoon, from Parliament; again, the Prime Minister is always taking about that. The Bill makes utter nonsense of all his protestations to be a doughty defender of democracy and the champion of this place. The Prime Minister has taken away power from this place and continues to do so. He is taking away power from the people in the country, who have the right to have a true say in the planning process. It is a shoddy bit of work. It is a bad day for Parliament and the Government should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Peter Bone: Pages 2375 to 2473 of today's Order Paper contain the amendments and new clauses that the Government are proposing. The Government are yet again trying to push through a measure that is controversial. They are determined, at every opportunity, to restrict debate on controversial matters. The Government do not get it. They should want to debate controversial measures rather than push them through. That is why they are failing and not communicating with the public.
	In the last week that the House sat, we debated the Second Reading of what we might call the "Yes Minister" Bill. The debate lasted two hours and 44 minutes. There were three Conservative Back-Bench speakers, none from the Government and none from the Liberal Democrats. That left unused more than three hours that could have been used for debate. It seems that whenever something is not controversial, there is plenty of time to debate it, but there is no time to debate controversial things. The Lisbon treaty is another example. The Government brought in a measure to restrict the amount of time that we could debate an issue in Committee.
	I urge the Government to think again. If they really want to communicate with the British public and put their ideas forward—if they really have a vision for Britain—let us debate that and not hide behind programming motions.

John Healey: My reasons for moving this motion were straightforward. I had hoped that they would be welcomed in the interest of good debate, not least by some of those who are clearly coming to these issues for the first time, because we will largely be able to settle the points of concern once we reach the debate. It is true that the Bill is wide-ranging and important, which is why we have, unusually, provided two full days for the Report stage.
	We had some vigorous debates in Committee. We reached a number of areas of shared ground and, if my memory serves me correctly, we finished the Committee stage early. The Government have reflected on a number of the points made in Committee and tabled amendments for consideration on Report accordingly. I have examined where the interest of the Committee lay and where the balance of interests is likely to lie on Report, and I have tried to allocate the time accordingly. It is true that we have tabled a substantial number of amendments for consideration on Report. Many of those are technical, many are minor in nature and many try to clarify points put to us in Committee and by some who have been interested in advising members of the Committee and Members of this House as the Bill progresses.

John Redwood: The Minister is trying to sound reasonable, but he could prove that he is reasonable by allowing the House to decide how much time it needed on each set of amendments and new clauses. Why will he not do that? The Opposition are behaving honourably and seriously—they do not want to filibuster, although that would be against the rules anyway; they want to consider the issues, including the ones that matter most. Will he give us that opportunity?

John Healey: I have lived through this Bill since its start, including all the Committee sittings and evidence sessions, and I am trying to explain to the House that I made a judgment when allocating the time. I wanted to ensure that as much time as possible was given to covering those areas that are likely to be of most interest, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman would accept that.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: The Minister is a cerebral man, and he has obviously done a great deal of reflecting on the Committee's deliberations in order to produce so many amendments. Why is he curbing the House's time for reflection so much?

John Healey: I am hardly curbing the House's time; I am ensuring that for more than two full days—particularly if we are able to get beyond this programme motion debate—we can debate the issues at stake on the Order Paper. Let me be clear that we have not sought to make fundamental changes to the scope or nature of the Bill; we have attempted to refine it, particularly in light of points made in Committee. This is far from being a new Bill, as some have tried to argue, although there are some areas of important amendment, not least those that we will consider tonight, which are about this House's ability to scrutinise strongly the new proposed national policy statements. Contrary to what the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) said, we want Members to give due attention to these provisions, and contrary to what the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) has argued, this programme motion is designed to help and not hide debate on the main issues.
	I respect the fact that there are Members of this House who speak fiercely on the point of principle on any programme motion, whatever the subject, but we have departed from the usual by giving two days to this consideration. We have spread the consideration over the full two days and we have allocated the time to where the debate and the interest is likely to be greatest. I commend the motion to the House.

Question put:—
	 The House divided: Ayes 248, Noes 193.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Orders of the Day

Planning Bill
	 — 
	[1st alloted day]

[Relevant document s : the letter from the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government of 3rd April and the Minister for Local Government's letter of reply of 16th April.]
	 As amended in the  Public Bill  Committee, considered.

New Clause 9
	 — 
	Highways

'(1) Highway-related development is within section 13(1)(g) only if the development is—
	(a) construction of a highway in a case within subsection (2),
	(b) improvement of a highway in a case within subsection (3), or
	(c) alteration of a highway in a case within subsection (4).
	(2) Construction of a highway is within this subsection only if the highway will (when constructed) be wholly in England and—
	(a) the Secretary of State will be the highway authority for the highway, or
	(b) the highway is to be constructed for a purpose connected with a highway for which the Secretary of State is (or will be) the highway authority.
	(3) Improvement of a highway is within this subsection only if—
	(a) the highway is wholly in England,
	(b) the Secretary of State is the highway authority for the highway, and
	(c) the improvement is likely to have a significant effect on the environment.
	(4) Alteration of a highway is within this subsection only if—
	(a) the highway is wholly in England,
	(b) the alteration is to be carried out by or on behalf of the Secretary of State, and
	(c) the highway is to be altered for a purpose connected with a highway for which the Secretary of State is (or will be) the highway authority.'.— [John Healey.]
	 Brought up, and read the First time.

John Healey: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 10— Railways.
	Government amendments Nos. 77 and 78.
	Amendment No. 325, in clause 14, page 8, line 12, leave out 'or Wales'.
	Amendment No. 315, in clause 19, page 11, line 10, after 'authorisation)', insert
	'or a pipe-line laid by a gas transporter holding a licence pursuant to section 91(a) of the Gas Act 1986 and which requires consent under regulation 14 of the Public Gas Transporter Pipe-line Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 1999'.
	Government amendment No. 79
	Amendment No. 331, in clause 20, page 12, line 18, leave out paragraph (a).
	Amendment No. 332, page 12, line 23, leave out paragraph (d).
	Amendment No. 333, line 30, leave out 'trunk road or'.
	Amendment No. 334, line 32, leave out 'trunk road or'.
	Amendment No. 335, line 37, leave out 'trunk road or'.
	Amendment No. 336, line 38, leave out 'trunk road or'.
	Amendment No. 337, line 41, leave out 'cycle track'.
	Amendment No. 338, line 42, leave out 'footpath'.
	Government amendments Nos. 80 to 88.
	Amendment No. 316, in clause 31, page 19, line 32, at end insert—
	'(l) consent under regulation 14 of the Public Gas Transporter Pipe-line Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 1999.'.
	Government amendments Nos. 89 to 92, 158 to 160, 249, 251, 253 and 254.

John Healey: I am delighted to move new clause 9, which sets off the debate on a series of provisions on developments for which consent is required or can be granted.
	This group of amendments includes a number tabled by the Government, which make significant changes to the thresholds for highway, railway and airport development. There are also changes ensuring that clusters of projects are dealt with correctly and reflect some of the concerns raised in Committee. There are amendments tabled by Opposition Members and two from my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, North (Jim Sheridan).
	New clause 9 and amendments Nos. 79, 90, 91, 158 to 160, 249, 251, 253 and 254 are intended to clarify the type of highway project that is captured in the Bill. I hope that hon. Members will see that the amendments make the highways threshold considerably simpler. They are the result of work undertaken to reflect points put to us in Committee, and points of concern put to us by other interested parties about the complexity of the Bill as originally drafted. To some extent, that complexity cannot be avoided, as the Bill draws numerous pieces of legislation together in a single consent regime for the first time—a prize and a policy aim for which there is, I think, broad support in all parts of the House. That was certainly the case in Committee.
	The principal change in new clause 9 is that we are setting out three clear types of highway development in England that will be put before the infrastructure planning commission for determination. The first type concerns a development that is, or will be, constructed for the purposes of a highway on the strategic road network—roads for which the Secretary of State is, or will be, the highway authority. The second type of development is the improvement of a highway on the strategic road network that will have a significant impact on the environment. The third is an alteration of a highway that is being carried out by, or on behalf of, the Secretary of State for a purpose connected with a highway on the strategic road network.
	Decisions on all those projects are currently made by the Secretary of State, so let me make it clear to the House that there is no question of taking from local decision making, or of there being an impact on local decision making. I should also stress that the clauses clarify the existing threshold. They will not result in additional projects going before the IPC for determination. I now turn to amendments Nos. 331 to 338, tabled by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson).

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I chided the Minister rather hard in the previous debate, but may I ask him a question gently, in a spirit of good will? New clause 9, along with a large number of other clauses, applies to England only. With the greatest good will in the world, how will the Bill work when the provisions for England are so different from the provisions for the rest of the United Kingdom? For example, if the powers in new clause 9 were to be invoked in relation to a road that ran from England to Wales, how would the development be dealt with?

John Healey: When we published the White Paper on the planning system and our proposals for reform last year, we recognised that certain planning matters are devolved. The devolution settlement was generally working well, and we did not set out to change it in the Bill. That is why, under new clause 9 and the amendments in the group, where there are matters for the Secretary of State relating to England and English roads, they can be passed to the IPC for determination. Decisions of that sort in Scotland or in Wales might be variously devolved and therefore will not be matters that we put to the IPC. That is the reason for the difference.
	I turn to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North Cornwall. As we said in Committee—the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), dealt with these parts of the Bill in Committee—most motorways and some A roads are indeed strategic roads that are essential to the economic functioning and prosperity of the country, allowing people and goods to move quickly and efficiently. In all cases, if a road is a trunk road, the Secretary of State will be the highway authority: the new clause and related amendments will have no impact on local decision making. Those roads will remain defined under the provisions as nationally significant infrastructure and therefore a matter for the IPC.
	In Committee, the hon. Gentleman also raised Committee cycle tracks and footpaths, to which the old definition applied. The Secretary of State can currently include provisions about cycle tracks and footpaths in a Highways Act order, where such paths are created or diverted in connection with a wider development to a main carriageway on a strategic road. But as my hon. Friend the Minister said in Committee, there are instances where cycle tracks and footpaths closely connected to developments on the strategic road network can be considered in isolation. There are examples, such as work going on alongside the A38 at present. We believe, however—this explains why we have set it out—that it is appropriate that where works are proposed to parts of the strategic road network, they should go to the IPC in the normal way as part of the package of proposals for the development.
	New clause 10 and amendments Nos. 78 and 85 replace the current railways threshold with a more detailed definition of the types of railway development that should go to the IPC for consideration and respond to the points made in Committee by the hon. Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait). Their concern was that the railways clause as drafted was too broad and that it would appear, for instance, to capture heritage railways and some tramway systems, which are classed as railways under the Transport and Works Act 1992, but it is not our intention that they should be determined by the IPC.
	As promised in Committee, having looked at these concerns, I am happy to confirm that new clause 10 will achieve the effect that the hon. Lady and the hon. Gentleman were seeking. The intention is that under the new threshold the IPC will consider only applications relating to the rail network operated by Network Rail or a subsidiary of it, including the Heathrow spur rail link and the channel tunnel rail link—in other words, those routes commonly known as the national rail network.
	On the intensification of use of airports and the airports threshold, amendments Nos. 77, 80 to 84, 86 and 87 ensure that the airports threshold is wide enough to capture any airport development that creates additional capacity at that airport by at least 10 million passengers a year or 10,000 air transport movements per year in relation to freight. In particular, it covers situations other than the physical development of a new or extended runway or the development of terminal buildings or an air traffic control mast, which would mean that more passengers could use an airport. It seemed to us an anomaly that the new planning system should deal with a significant increase in capacity at airports only when that was the result of physical development, not by the lifting of a planning condition that may currently restrict the number of flights or movements. The thresholds for what constitutes a nationally significant infrastructure project should capture a change of that magnitude in the use of an airport, even if no physical development were needed to bring that change about. Our amendments will ensure that such changes are considered in the framework of the new national policy statement and that they are given the same independent expert scrutiny as other major airport developments.

David Jones: As recently amended, the Bill specifically brings aircraft and air passenger movements into the realm of the planning system. What regime currently governs passenger and air movements in airports? I understand that a Civil Aviation Authority licence is involved in the cases of Heathrow and Gatwick, but will the Minister explain the position for the rest of the country?

John Healey: rose—

John McDonnell: Will my hon. Friend give way at an appropriate moment?

John Healey: I will happily give way to my hon. Friend in a moment. He is an expert on these matters and has a strong constituency interest in and track record on the issues that we are discussing. I shall give way to him and then deal with any necessary points from both interventions.

John McDonnell: On a point of clarity, will the Minister confirm that what we are referring to is, for example, the potential for the lifting of the Cranford agreement or changes on runway alternation to be included in the legislation?

John Healey: Any changes to, and therefore increase in, the use of an airport that lead to an additional 10 million or more passengers a year or to an additional 10,000 or more freight movements a year—whatever the source—should be considered, within the new planning system in the context of the new national policy statements, as physical developments; they might lead to the same impact. Stansted is an example. At that airport, there is an application relating to the lifting of a planning condition that restricts the number of flights. If such an application went ahead, there could be an increase in the number of passengers. To be consistent, such a change would be brought within the new system. That is what we propose.

John McDonnell: It would be invaluable if Members whose constituencies, in west London and beyond, are affected by Heathrow, got absolute clarity on this matter with regard to the Cranford agreement and runway alternation at Heathrow. At some time during the debate, will the Minister clarify whether he is now saying that the amendments tabled by the Government would enable those agreements to be changed or lifted in some way as a result of this process? That could result in a significant increase in air traffic movements at Heathrow without there being any physical infrastructural developments.

John Healey: To the extent that I can give such clarification and that it is necessary to go beyond what I have already explained in order to do so, I will.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: What we are discussing is one of the most controversial aspects of the Bill in relation to air travel, and it would be useful to have it clarified. To understand how these amendments and clauses work, may I ask whether, in future, that extra runway at Stansted—to take the Minister's example—would already have been subject to an examination in respect of a national policy statement? In other words, will the infrastructure planning commission operate in a climate in which a national policy statement will already say whether there should be another runway at Heathrow, Stansted, Gatwick or wherever?

John Healey: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will stick around for the whole debate, because we will come later to the question of national policy statements, what properly constitutes them and what stages of public consultation, parliamentary scrutiny and environmental appraisal are required before such statements can be put in place. Only when such a statement is in place can the IPC consider an eligible application for a major development project within the relevant territory. That basis would have to be properly put in place before the new system could activate to consider an application that, under the terms of these provisions, would meet the thresholds that we set out.
	Turning to clusters and our amendment No. 92, we had a useful debate in Committee about the circumstances in which the Secretary of State might direct a series of proposed projects to the IPC. The amendment clarifies our intention that where a series of projects that fall below the threshold are proposed for similar infrastructure projects, the Secretary of State may direct them to the IPC as being collectively of national significance, thereby reflecting the potential cumulative impact that such clusters of projects can have on an area. The hon. Member for North Cornwall is well aware of that from his own area. I stress, however, that we envisage that that ministerial power of direction would be exercised on the basis of clear criteria set out in a ministerial statement or in the national policy statement itself. Furthermore, we would expect it to be used comparatively rarely and to deal largely with circumstances that were impossible to predict, such as changing technology, changing circumstances in a particular sector, or situations where several projects have come forward in close proximity to each other and are therefore likely to have a cumulative impact requiring consideration as a whole. I hope that hon. Members accept that this is a sensible flexibility in the system that will allow us to deal with appropriate but unforeseen circumstances.

Jacqui Lait: Will the Minister confirm, purely for the record, that his proposals on clusters will not be applied to eco-towns?

John Healey: It is hard to see how eco-towns would fall within the Bill's provisions, not least because they are housing developments, which are not proposed as eligible major infrastructure projects for the new system of IPC consideration and determination.
	Let me respond to the points raised in Committee by the hon. Member for Beckenham when we discussed how multiple applications or multiple projects considered as a whole in one application could work. The mechanisms by which the IPC considers separate applications together will be outlined in the relevant national policy statement, in the terms of the Secretary of State's direction, and in other relevant IPC standards and guidance. We intend that where separate projects are directed to the IPC to be treated together, the promoters will be required to work together to create a harmonised set of documentation for the ease not only of the IPC but, importantly, of the public and other local interests that might want to have a significant say on such an application.
	I will touch briefly on two other important issues dealt with in this group of amendments. The first is raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, North (Jim Sheridan) in his amendments Nos. 315 and 316, which relate to high-pressure pipelines constructed by licence—gas transporters. He has pursued that subject strongly over the past few months. As I said, the aim of the Bill is to simplify and streamline the planning system for major infrastructure projects. The industry has raised the issue of larger gas transporter pipelines, which can sometimes require a number of other consents. We regard this as raising several important matters, as my hon. Friend has rightly argued. We have a number of practical points to explore further with the industry, and we have to do that before we come to a firm decision on whether those pipeline projects should be considered by the IPC.

Jim Sheridan: On those practical points, would the Minister consider meeting people from the industry at an early stage to discuss the security aspects and the environmental ones?

John Healey: My hon. Friend pre-empts me. I was going to suggest that he broker a meeting with my leading officials—if not with me—so that we can take the process a stage further. We could assess the impact of the industry's proposal and see how it would fit within the established devolution, and assess the extent to which the existing system of permitted development is working well. If my hon. Friend were prepared to broker such a meeting, it would be an important and useful next step.
	Finally, I come to amendment No. 325, which the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) tabled. I suspect that behind the amendment lies a request to the Government to devolve the consideration of the applications to Welsh Ministers. We have had detailed discussions, not just with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform but with the Welsh Assembly Government and the Wales Office. Consistent with what I said earlier, we do not want to change the devolution settlement through this Bill , but to respect its significant points.
	The best approach for the long-term energy needs of this country is to develop reserve powers on nationally significant energy infrastructure, including the sort of power stations covered by the amendment. We made it clear in the White Paper that we did not propose to change the devolution settlement, so we have been consistent in our approach to the issue. Given that position, it is clear that such projects should be included within the IPC's remit; they would benefit from a quicker, more effective system of determination and consideration that gives a reinforced role to the public and enables them to have their say. I am not sure that it would serve Wales well if applications for major new generating stations there used the old regime while their equivalents in England used the new regime.
	I hope that that helped the House. I hope that I have explained matters and convinced Members that the Government's new clauses and amendments will reinforce and strengthen the Bill, and that their intent is one that the House can support. I hope that those of my hon. Friends and Opposition Members who tabled amendments can see that we have dealt with the issues about which they are concerned. I hope, therefore, that they will not find it necessary to press any of their amendments to a vote. If they do, I shall have to ask my hon. Friends to resist.

David Jones: This is the first group of a large number of Government amendmentsthey are overwhelmingly of a technical naturethat we have to consider. As we heard, the large number of amendments has taken those who served in Committee by surprise. The amendments are extensive, and for the most part they are significant. To a considerable extent, the amendments appear to address matters that should have been considered long before the Bill was publishedcertainly not later than the Committee sittings. In fact, some of the amendments amend amendments that were made in Committee. It is fairly obvious that amendments have been tabled as a result of pressure on the Minister from other Whitehall Departments, which have clearly been crawling all over the Bill, having their four pennies' worth.
	The most significant amendments, as the Minister said, are new clauses 9 and 10. By virtue of amendment No. 79, clause 20, which deals with nationally significant highway projects, is deleted altogether, while new clause 9 substitutes a definition of highway-related development. New clause 9 is largely welcome, given that it appears to avoid the risk of small-scale highway projects falling within the definition of nationally significant infrastructure project. Members of the Committee were concerned that including smaller scale projects could clog up the development consent system and so defeat the object of streamlining the consents process. The Local Government Association expressed the view that local authorities should continue to maintain their role on trunk roads, particularly the smaller and less used ones. It is therefore good that the Government have acknowledged the force of the arguments expressed in Committee and by the LGA, by effectively restricting the IPC procedure to major trunk road projects.
	However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) pointed out in his intervention, it is notable that the development consent route is available only for roads wholly contained in England; Wales and Scotland are excluded, as are cross-border routes. The issue of cross-border routes is particularly contentious. The Government have made it clear throughout the passage of the Billin fact, the Minister just reiterated thisthat they are reluctant to disturb the devolution settlement. That is quite understandable. Nevertheless, it is hard to see why such an important Bill could not have been introduced with the co-operation and support of the Welsh Assembly Government and the Scottish Executive, so as to ensure that the streamlined development consent process, which the Government are so keen on, could apply to cross-border highway routes.
	The matter was raised in Committee. I had hoped that the Government would liaise with their colleagues in the devolved Administrations, to see whether it was possible to extend the development consent procedure to cross-border highways. As it is, consents relating to both ends of new cross-border routes will have to be considered under the existing disparate procedure. As I am sure the Minister will be well aware, that procedure has resulted in some cross-border routes not being completed as quickly as they should be.
	A prime exampleI relate this with feelingis the A5117 link road between the M56 and the A55 north Wales expressway. That route has taken an inordinately long time to complete; in fact, it is still in construction as I speak. If devolution is to work sensibly, there is no reason why the Government should not liaise with the devolved Administrations to see whether it is possible to bring uniformity to matters as important as those that we are considering today. Perhaps the Minister will indicate whether the opportunity was taken to liaise with the devolved Administration in respect of that matter and whether he feels that an opportunity was missed to improve cross-border road networks.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am sure that my hon. Friend knows this better than I do, but in that respect the Bill applies not only to roads, but to railways. Is it not folly that a major road or rail scheme might get to the boundary of Scotland or Wales, but then face inordinate delays in reaching its final destination, thereby watering down the whole purpose of the scheme?

David Jones: My hon. Friend is quite right. As I have said, that is the very problem that travellers along the north Wales coastal road have experienced for many years, as a consequence of the delayed completion of the A5117 link. He is right, too, that the regime applies also to railways. The concern is that devolution, which is supposed to work for the benefit of the residents of the devolved Administrations, is perhaps being applied too strictly, to the extent that it is penalising those people.
	The Minister mentioned the amendments to the regime concerning railways. New clause 10 is a substitute for the old clause 23, and provides a new definition of the construction or alteration of a railway. It is the second such amendment of the clause. In essence, the new clause raises the railway threshold so that it relates only to strategic rail links and not to light tramways or guided transport. Again, the Government, to their credit, appear to have listened to the concerns that were expressed in Committee, where Members said that tramways should properly be in the domain of the local planning authority and not the infrastructure planning commission.
	Subsections (1)(c) and (2)(c) of the new clause provide that the construction or alteration of a railway carried out pursuant to permitted development, which is
	development in relation to which planning permission is granted by article 3 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995,
	is specifically excluded. As the Minister will be aware, part 17 of the 1995 order provides that permitted development is:
	Development by railway undertakers on their operational land, required in connection with the movement of traffic by rail.
	It is interesting that the new clause does not disturb that.
	One can fully understand the need for the GPD regime to be preserved in respect of railways, but will the Minister explain why Network Rail, uniquely among statutory undertakers, should have those rights preserved? As far as I can see, permitted rights are not being preserved for other statutory undertakersspecifically, as I hope to discuss later, the operators of ports and harbours. Will the Minister explain why it is thought proper to preserve those GPD rights in relation to railways but not for other statutory undertakers?
	The Minister mentioned the amendments on airports. Amendments Nos. 77, 81, 82, 83 and 84 all relate to air transport. Their effect is to ensure that where there is an existing restriction on the number of passenger movements or cargo aircraft movements at an airport, any proposal to increase the annual use of the airport by more than 10 million passengers or 10,000 air transport movements of cargo aircraft will be a matter for the new single development consent process. The Minister has said that that will apply even if the promoter does not propose the physical development of the site.
	I have asked the Minister which regimes currently govern passenger and air cargo movements per sethose that are unrelated to physical alterations to the airport and I understand that the Civil Aviation Authority is responsible for a licensing regime in respect of Gatwick and Heathrow. The Minister has indicated that the planning regime is already used for other matters, but that would, I imagine, be in respect of physical development, because it is clear from the amendments that passenger and air transport movements, per se, are being brought within the planning process for the first time.
	Speaking entirely as a lay person, I find it hard to see how the significant intensification of an airport's use by so many additional traffic movements could be accommodated without at least some physical development of the site. That might simply mean more lavatories in the air terminal, but more car parks and reception facilities might also be needed. I should think, therefore, that applications seeking consent for increased air traffic movements, in isolation, will be relatively rare, but one can imagine how disturbing such applications will be to residents of neighbouring properties and even of properties some miles away from the airport. To put it bluntly, there is extreme concern that such applications will result in a large number of irate householders complaining about the disturbance that they are likely to experience as a result. We shall debate the subject of the IPC at a later date, but this seems to be a prime example of a situation in which it is right for there to be political accountability and transparency, and for a Minister to be answerable for a policy, in the House, to the Members of Parliament who represent the aggrieved householders. Given the sensitivity of these proposals, what assurance can the Minister give us that the interests of aggrieved neighbours will be properly represented in respect of such applications?
	The Minister referred to amendment No. 92, and to the clustering of developments. The amendment would provide that such clusters may be the subject of a direction by the Secretary of State to be treated as an application for an order granting development consent. That is welcome, given the potential impact of the proliferation of a number of applications for the same kind of development in the same area. Prime examples nowadays are applications for the development of a number of wind farms, each of which is just below the 50 MW onshore capacity limit. It is quite right that the impact of such applications should be given consideration as a development of nationally significant importance. Individually, such applications are usually made to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform under the Electricity Act 1989.
	However, the provisions in clause 33, as amended, relate only to England and to English waters. The Minister has already explained that the Government are concerned not to disturb the devolution settlement, but I find it hard to understand, even within the context of that concern, why the proposal should relate only to England and not extend to Wales. The Minister has already explained, when dealing with amendment No. 325, that the Welsh Assembly does not have devolved competence in respect of onshore wind farms above 50 MW, under the Electricity Act, or of offshore wind farms above 100 MW. I therefore suggest that extending the provisions of clause 33, as amended by amendment No. 92, to Wales would not in any sense disturb the devolution settlement. There seems to be a possibility that Wales could be left behind when the new streamlined procedure is adopted to consider large-scale generating applications. Will the Minister explain why he has decided to exclude Wales on this occasion?

John McDonnell: I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 77 and 80 to 87, which deal with airport-related developments. It is critical for my constituents to get some clarity on the process by which future airport developmentsparticularly at Heathrowwill be dealt with as a result of this legislation.
	A conspiracy theory is developing in my constituency around the development of Heathrow airport. It is not some sort of collective paranoia; it is based on the reality that the development of Heathrow has, until now, been a conspiracy. Every assurance that my constituents have been given about the limitations to be placed on the development of Heathrow has been reneged upon within a short space of time after it was given, even on the Floor of the House. I would be grateful if the Minister could provide that clarity.
	The Bill deals with the process by which an airport development can take place to increase the usage of that airport, with or without the physical development of some form of infrastructure at the airport. At the moment, airport development is controlled, first, by statements to the House made as a result of the various planning inquiries. The last statement was made by the Secretary of State for Transport and, as a result of the recommendation by the inspector at the inquiry on terminal 5, it capped air traffic movements at Heathrow airport at 480,000 a year. That limit will shortly be reached.
	I understand that if there is a proposal to lift that cap beyond the limits set out in this legislation, that decision will form part of the new process in the Bill. That is one form of limitation that will have to be considered through this process, if it results in the additional 10 million air cargo movements set out in the amendments.
	In addition to the overall cap on flight movements, at Heathrow there are other agreements that have arisen as a result of the planning processes at a number of inquiries, such as those for the fourth and fifth terminals, and even ones before those. Largely, they are voluntary agreements. One is on runway alternation and another is the Cranford agreement. They provide a means of relief for households in my constituency and across west London and beyond, into Windsor. At least for part of the day and for part of the week, people have a break from aircraft flying overhead, creating noise and pollution.
	I am unsure whether those agreements, if they were lifted or amended in some way, would also form part of this process. Lifting or changing the agreements could result in a significant increase in the intensity of the use of Heathrow airport and, as a result, have a devastating impact on the lives lived in the locality.
	I shall give an example. On Saturday, there was a demonstration that said no to the expansion of Heathrow airport, and a head teacher was present with their pupils. As a result of those agreements, they at least gain some break during the day when teaching with the windows open can continue. Without those agreements, the windows would have to be closed. It is difficult to teach anyway due to the noise of the aircraft overhead. It is critical for my constituents and others to be absolutely clear about what falls within this legislation and what does not.
	I refer back to the concept of a conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory that is developing now about the proposals for the expansion of Heathrow airport relates to the amendments. The Government are having difficulty overcoming the issues around air and noise pollution, which would enable them to expand with a third runway and a sixth terminal, as proposed. We now know that the Government are privately looking to go to the European Union for permission to derogate from those pollution limits, despite the assurances given on the Floor of the House that no third runway or sixth terminal would go ahead unless they strictly comply with those limits.
	If that was the case, my constituents would be concerned that the Government might not get permission or would allow themselves in the short term to go ahead with a third runway and sixth terminal. Therefore, to increase capacity at Heathrow airport they would lift the cap on flights but also remove the Cranford agreement and the alternation agreement. That would allow intensified use of the airport and have a major impact on the local environment and the quality of life of local constituents.
	It is critical that we get it clear what will and will not fall within the legislation as a result of the amendments. If it is the overall cap, I can understand that, but is it also the voluntary agreements, which have given some protection to my constituents as well as to most parts of London and into Windsor and elsewhere? I would be grateful if the Minister clarified that in today's debate. Failing that, I would be happy to receive information over the next few days, but before next week's discussions. He may want to provide information or write to us so that we can at least inform our constituents accordingly. I believe that a number of Members representing west London seats, Windsor and elsewhere have not fully appreciated the potential of the amendments, if they will indeed have such an impact on runway alternation and the Cranford agreement. There would have been wider attendance at today's debate from those Members if they had been aware of those matters.

Daniel Rogerson: As was pointed out in our earlier debate, a number of the amendments that we are discussing will change the Bill significantly. Some were tabled in response to the raising of issues in Committee, but they are not new issues. Organisations and people out in the real world who will be affected by the Bill have doubtless been raising them with the Government ever since the announcement that it was to be introduced. As other Members have said, it is a shame that it has taken us from the beginning of the Committee stage until a fairly crowded Report stage to address some of them.
	Let me deal with the new clauses and amendments in turn, as was done by the Minister and by the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones). New clause 9 is welcome in that it delineates a little more clearly which highway schemes would be given to the IPC to decide and consult on. The hon. Member for Clwyd, West rightly pointed out that the Local Government Association has lobbied heavily on that issue. Indeed, its chairman gave evidence to us before the Committee stage. He said that the LGA would be happy with the Government's proposals, but I must confess that I think that it probably is not. Amendments tabled by me, which I shall discuss later, may be slightly more in accord with the concern expressed by local government about which roads will be involved.
	Trunk roads are handled by the Highways Agency and are currently under the aegis of the Secretary of State when it comes to planning decisions. The arrangements are not confined to motorways and other specific kinds of road, which I believe are described as special roads, or special highways, in the Bill. The arrangements include a number of important highways whose construction would have a big local impact, and on which local authorities would want the power to decide. As the Minister has said, such decisions are currently made by the Secretary of State, which returns us to a discussion that we have had before about whether it would be preferable for them to be made by the IPC. As others have said, we shall discuss that more fully later, but I believe that the clarification provided in the new clausealthough helpful in explaining the Government's intentdoes not go far enough to deal with concern about the growing role of the IPC.
	I do not like the dreadful phrase mission creep, although I have yet to come up with a better term; I am sure that older and wiser heads than mine will do so as the debate proceeds. However, I think that the concept it describes is cause for great concern, not just in the context of highways but in relation to a raft of possible IPC decisions, andas we heard in evidencethe Local Government Association wants that to be restricted.
	Amendments Nos. 331 to 338, tabled by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), seek to remove trunk roads from the provisions of clause 29, further restricting the application to highways. That clause may, of course, be replaced by new clause 9 today. I do not intend to press our amendments to a Division, but I believe that the Government could do more to meet the concerns expressed by the LGA and others.
	New clause 10 tightens the definition of railway applications. I welcome what the Minister said in response to points about, for instance, light rail that were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington in Committee. However, as a result of concern expressed by the hon. Member for Clwyd, West about permitted development rights I tabled new clause 38, which I understand will be debated next Monday, and which also deals with the widening of scope.
	The Minister spoke at some length about the devolution settlement and about the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) has sought to address with his amendment; the aspiration of the Welsh Assembly Government to have a greater say over power generation. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), the Minister said that discussions were continuing, implying that it might be possible to do this without substantially altering the devolution settlement.
	Amendment No. 325 seeks to prevent the powers from being transferred to the IPC in the hope that those discussions can continue. I support the concept, not just in terms of my traditionalas it has become during the course of the Billantipathy to the IPC. Restricting anything from going to the IPC is worth doing, but in this case the amendment seeks to reserve the possibility of negotiations continuing in future without the added complication of the IPC interfering.
	The Minister sought to address clustering through amendment No. 92, an important issue that may be relevant to my constituency in the near future. The Minister was referring to wind power and onshore wind development. We had the first wind farm in the country in North Cornwall at Delabole. We are proud of that, and there is great support for renewable energy. But there is concern that when an area has shown it is willing to take steps in that direction, it becomes the focal point for developers across the country, who descend on it rather than look at other equally suitable sites, causing saturation.
	Certain smaller applications may come together to make something that is nationally significant, but in that clustering, there is even more local significance. The concern for people in my area is not just that clustering is taking place, but that the initial decision on it is taken away from the local authority, even if that decision might go to the Planning Inspectorate. Clustering could make matters slightly worse. The recognition of clustering is welcome, but the idea of transferring consideration of it to the IPC is problematic and adds to my growing concern about its expanding role.
	The Minister has sought to respond to a number of concerns and has offered some clarification. Unfortunately, that has not brought about a state of affairs that I and others outside the House can support. It implies yet again a growing concentration of decision-making powers in the hands of the IPC. We are yet to see how the IPC will work and whether it will be able to undertake all the functions being heaped upon it.
	On airport expansion, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) set out, as he always does, just how important the issue is to people in west London. He is right to point out that many Members from west London will be concerned if that thorny issue is drawn into the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) was discussing this with me earlier and sought some clarification on what may be in the Bill.
	I suppose that, yet again, the feeling will be that it is very welcome that this matter will move in some way into the planning realm, that people will therefore have the chance to get their opinions across and that there will be consultation and so on, although there may well be disquiet that the IPC, which is not a democratically accountable body, will be taking this decision. I risk straying again into issues that we will be deciding later, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	I have concerns about some of the Minister's comments about how the new clauses and amendments will change the Bill. I shall seek permission to put amendment No. 325, which stands in the name of my hon. Friends, to a separate vote, should that be the will of the House. I also reserve judgment on some of the other measures that the Minister has addressed.

Elfyn Llwyd: I wish to refer to new clauses 9 and 10, which are self-explanatory and introduce a great deal of clarity into the debate at rather a late stage. Those new clauses clearly assist us in our deliberations, and they are entirely appropriate and acceptable.
	The hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) said that he was concerned that there might be a problem if major roadway infrastructure were to be considered for England, when a different authority were considering the matter over the border. I do not see any problem with such an arrangement. A devolution settlement is in place, and transport is largely, if not almost totally, devolved to the National Assembly for Wales. I am sure that this will be a challenge in the future not in any way to be shrugged off by anybody on either side of the border in the best interests of people in England and, of course, in the best interests of the people in Wales. I do not think that using the terminology that we might be left behind in some way is at all helpful, because that will not happen. This will be a challenge, but I have no doubt that Ministers in Cardiff and Ministers in London will liaise carefully on these matters in the best interests of bringing in developments.
	I am concerned about the lack of understanding on the 50 MW issue, which we discussed in Committee. The Minister knows that the whole point of amendment No. 325, which stands in the name of several Liberal Democrat Members, is to exclude Wales from this particular aspect of energy creation. I tabled a similar amendment in Committee, so I fully support it. He will know that the National Assembly for Wales has considerable powers in respect of major energy projects in Wales, and a winding back on that particular issue seems to be taking place, because offshore generating stations of more than 50 MW will now effectively be called in to be dealt with by the IPC. Many people in Wales, for example, the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales and some people in government in Wales, are unhappy about that; there is unease not simply in my party, but across the political spectrum, because that unnecessarily complicates matters. I hoped that the Government would accept this amendment earlier, but clearly they are not going to accept it.
	The approach being taken creates an inconsistency, and when one looks at that in the context of Welsh planning policy, existing national policy statements, the role and status of planning policy in Wales and the associated technical advice notes for the Wales spatial plan and so on, one sees that the Government could and should have accepted the amendment. It is a lost opportunity. It will be put to a vote today, but it is unlikely to be won, so I hope that the Government will reconsider at some point. It is an unnecessary complication that could be simplified very easily, were the amendment accepted.
	Government new clauses 9 and 10 are unobjectionable, as are the consequential amendments. They bring clarity to the Bill, albeit at a rather late stage. I echo what others have said about the considerable amount of work that we need to do today and next week to deal with all the Government amendments, and I shall therefore truncate my remarks on amendment No. 325.

John Healey: I suppose that it is fair for hon. Members to have a go at me and at the Government over the number of amendments tabled on Report, but it is also reasonable to recognise the complexity of the Bill, and especially of the prize that we are trying to create, which is supported by both sides of the House, of a single consent regime in place of a maze of other consents and pieces of legislation, some dating back 50 years or more. At each stage, if we have heard serious, well argued and evidence-based points that suggest that the framework in the Bill is not adequate or could be clearer or stronger, I have tried to respond. That is largely what we have tried to do in many of the amendments.
	The hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) questioned the number of amendments earlier, but I was pleased by the tone that he struck in dealing with this group. He said that it was good to see changes to the highway definitions and thresholds, and I appreciate that. He also gave us credit for listening to views expressed in Committee on railways, and he welcomed the amendments on the power to direct clusters of, for instance, wind farms just below the 50 MW threshold, which appear sensible to several other hon. Members.
	The hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions. On cross-border roads, decision making will continue to be split between England, Scotland and Wales, and the English developments that fall within the categories to be determined by the IPC will be determined by it. The schemes that cross borders are now often planned on a whole-network basis. The Highways Agency currently plans for cross-border highways, and it does so in conjunction with the Scottish and Welsh Governments. I see no reason why that arrangement, which works reasonably well, cannot continue in the future.
	On clusters in Wales, I must be blunt. It is not the case that Welsh Ministers have expressed any enthusiasm for directing wind farm applications in Wales to the IPC, so we have not moved in that direction

David Jones: rose

Roger Williams: rose

Elfyn Llwyd: rose

John Healey: There is an interesting divergence in views from the Welsh perspective on the Opposition Benches. I shall give way to the hon. Member for Clwyd, West first.

David Jones: I apologise if I gave the impression that the Welsh Ministers were expressing enthusiasm for the IPC process: I am sure that they are not. It just seems to me that the Government are anxious not to disturb the devolution settlement. However, given that it does not extend to onshore wind farms above 50 MW and offshore wind farms above 100 MW, how can it possibly be said that to extend the competency of the IPC, or the single consent process, to such wind farms would disturb the devolution settlement? It clearly would not do so.

John Healey: I tried to explain when I made my opening remarks that that is an important feature, which is likely to become increasingly important, of the UK's overall energy supply and energy security. It is not a devolved function. That is why we have taken the view, after quite detailed discussions between the Welsh Assembly Government, the Welsh Office and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, that that is the approach that we should take and that it is consistent with the devolution settlement.

Elfyn Llwyd: I wanted to respond to something that the Minister said earlier. He gave the impression that Welsh Ministers were in some way arguing against what was proposed in the amendment when they were, in fact, arguing in favour of it, as his brotherhis colleaguesaid in Committee. I say brother, but that is all old Labour-talk now, is it not? In Committee, the Minister's colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick) said:
	I am well aware that Welsh Ministers have argued for the devolution of energy consents of more than 50 MW, and that there have been tripartite discussions. [Official Report, Planning Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 334.]
	The Minister for Local Government just mentioned those discussions. His colleague went on to say that the Government remain of the view that the situation should be as per the Bill. The Minister for Local Government somehow gave the impression that Welsh Ministers had not argued in favour of the amendment on that subject, when they had done so strongly.

John Healey: I am under no misapprehension, and I do not think that I have given any cause for misunderstanding, about the approach to the question of consents for 50 MW wind farms that has interested Welsh Ministers. My point, which the hon. Gentleman tried to quote back to me, was about clusters. The hon. Member for Clwyd, West was making a different point about a different amendment on the power of direction to cluster more minor projects together in one single application, rather than the issue that the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) is concerned about. I pay tribute to him for the work that he has done, which I shall come to in a moment.

David Jones: rose

Roger Williams: rose

John Healey: I shall give way again, but I wanted to answer the points that have been made during the debate rather than dealing with a set of fresh points, particularly from those who have only just joined us.

David Jones: I am most grateful to the Minister, who is being very generous. May I revert to the point that I raised? How would the extension of the cluster procedure to Wales and Welsh wind farms in any sense disturb the devolution settlement?

John Healey: The question of where we set the threshold for wind farms has been set in the context of looking at the UK's energy security and energy supply strategy, which is a reserved power. The 50 MW threshold is the appropriate way to reflect what need to be, nevertheless, a range of planning responsibilities that are properly devolved and should properly remain devolved in Wales. That is the approach that we have taken.
	The hon. Member for Clwyd, West asked why only railways will have permitted development rights. We are protecting all permitted development rights in the Bill, but the railways are explicit, because of the drafting of how we will deal with the thresholds. In addition, the Highways Agency has the power to carry out similar types of works via an administrative order. That is the equivalent for highways of the permitted development rights for railways. Ports and airports have explicit numerical thresholds for those works and so, if the hon. Gentleman likes to see it that way, the permitted development rights for ports and airports are preserved in our proposed approach.
	On the points made by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), I tried earlierI shall not repeat myselfto deal with the intent behind the highways amendments and the approach to the question of cycle paths and the definition of trunk roads. I understand the Local Government Association's general concern, but since 2001 the Department for Transport has detrunked 175 sections of road and thereby passed them to local authority control. More of those are in the pipeline. The DFT specifically welcomed and invited suggestions of where other trunk roads might be passed to local authority control. Finally, the DFT has confirmed that it plans to consult during the summer on local highways consents under the Highways Act 1980 that could be passed to lower tiers of government. Rather than decision making being taken further out of the hands of local authorities, we are not changing any of the consents at present. This is part of a number of steps that the Department is quite rightly considering to put more under local control.
	I understand the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) about the agreements, including voluntary ones, that are currently in place at Heathrow. I have tried to explain the intent of the definition that we propose. He is quite right to sayin particular, before we get to the debate next weekthat it is important to be precisely clear about that. I will review tomorrow the  Hansard record, and if I feel that what has been said is not complete and clear enough, I will certainly write to him to ensure that he has the information that he is looking for.

John McDonnell: I would be grateful if that letter were received before the debate on Third Reading, because I would welcome the opportunity to read that correspondence into the parliamentary record.

John Healey: If I judge that there is a need to write to my hon. Friend, I will do so this week, and he will receive the letter this week.
	The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) returned to what he described as the lack of understanding on the 50 MW wind farm issue. He produced his amendment in Committee before the Liberal Democrats produced theirs, and he has expressed concerns about the issue. I have tried to explain to him that there may well be unease or unhappiness in Wales, but there is emphatically no winding back, as he described it, of the provisions and the devolution settlement in relation to Wales in our approach.
	Government amendment No. 88 relates to provisions in the Coast Protection Act 1949 that largely deal with the content of development consents, which we can discuss more fully in conjunction with proposals in the third group of new clauses and amendments, and that is what I propose to do.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 10
	  
	Railways

'(1) Construction of a railway is within section 13(1)(j) only if
	(a) the railway will (when constructed) be wholly in England,
	(b) the railway will (when constructed) be part of a network operated by an approved operator, and
	(c) the construction of the railway is not permitted development.
	(2) Alteration of a railway is within section 13(1)(j) only if
	(a) the part of the railway to be altered is wholly in England,
	(b) the railway is part of a network operated by an approved operator, and
	(c) the alteration of the railway is not permitted development.
	(3) Construction or alteration of a railway is not within section 13(1)(j) to the extent that the railway forms part (or will when constructed form part) of a rail freight interchange.
	(4) Approved operator means a person who meets the conditions in subsections (5) and (6).
	(5) The condition is that the person must be
	(a) a person who is authorised to be the operator of a network by a licence granted under section 8 of the Railways Act 1993 (licences for operation of railway assets), or
	(b) a wholly-owned subsidiary of a company which is such a person.
	(6) The condition is that the person is designated, or is of a description designated, in an order made by the Secretary of State.
	(7) In this section
	network has the meaning given by section 83(1) of the Railways Act 1993;
	permitted development means development in relation to which planning permission is granted by article 3 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995;
	wholly-owned subsidiary has the same meaning as in the Companies Act 2006 (see section 1159 of that Act).
	(8) The reference in subsection (7) to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995 is to that Order as it has effect immediately before the day on which this section comes fully into force.'. [John Healey.]
	 Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 13
	  
	Nationally significant infrastructure projects: general

Amendments made: No. 77, page 7, line 14, leave out
	'the construction or alteration of an airport'
	and insert 'airport-related development'.
	No. 78, page 7, line 16, after 'construction', insert 'or alteration'. [John Healey.]
	 Amendment proposed: No. 325, in page 8, line 12, clause 14, leave out 'or Wales'. [Dan Rogerson.]
	 Question put, That the amendment be made:
	 The House divided: Ayes 46, Noes 265.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 20
	  
	Highways

Amendment made: No. 79, page 11, line 41, leave out Clause 20. [John Healey.]

Clause 21
	  
	Airports

Amendments made: No. 80, page 13, line 1, at end insert
	'(A1) Airport-related development is within section 13(1)(h) only if the development is
	(a) the construction of an airport in a case within subsection (1),
	(b) the alteration of an airport in a case within subsection (3), or
	(c) an increase in the permitted use of an airport in a case within subsection (5A).'.
	No. 81, page 13, line 2, leave out 'The construction of an airport is within section 13(1)(h)' and insert
	'Construction of an airport is within this subsection'.
	No. 82, page 13, line 12, leave out 'An alteration of an airport is within section 13(1)(h)' and insert
	'Alteration of an airport is within this subsection'.
	No. 83, page 13, line 26, at end insert
	'(5A) An increase in the permitted use of an airport is within this subsection only if
	(a) the airport is in England or in English waters, and
	(b) the increase is within subsection (5B).
	(5B) An increase is within this subsection if
	(a) it is an increase of at least 10 million per year in the number of passengers for whom the airport is permitted to provide air passenger transport services, or
	(b) it is an increase of at least 10,000 per year in the number of air transport movements of cargo aircraft for which the airport is permitted to provide air cargo transport services.'.
	No. 84, page 13, line 38, at end insert
	'permitted means permitted by planning permission or development consent.'. [ John Healey.]

Clause 23
	  
	Railways

Amendment made: No. 85, page 15, line 4, leave out Clause 23. [John Healey.]

Clause 30
	  
	Meaning of development

Amendments made: No. 86, page 18, line 19, at end insert
	'(c) an increase in the permitted use of an airport is treated as a material change in the use of the airport.'.
	No. 87, page 18, line 40, at end insert
	'permitted means permitted by planning permission or development consent;'. [John Healey.]

Clause 31
	  
	Effect of requirement for development consent on other consent regimes

Amendments made: No. 88, page 19, leave out lines 11 and 12.
	No. 89, page 19, line 33, leave out from second 'development' to end of line 34 and insert
	', the development may not be authorised by any of the following'.
	No. 90, page 19, line 42, leave out 'of a proposed' and insert ', improvement or alteration of a'.
	No. 91, page 19, line 43, leave out from 'made' to end of line 44 and insert
	'or confirmed in relation to the highway or in connection with the construction, improvement or alteration of the highway'. [John Healey.]

Clause 33
	  
	Directions in relation to projects of national significance

Amendment made: No. 92, page 20, line 34, at end insert
	', either by itself or when considered with one or more other projects or proposed projects in one or more of the fields specified in subsection (2)'. [John Healey.]

New Clause 15
	  
	Land to which authorisation of compulsory acquisition can relate

'(1) An order granting development consent may include provision authorising the compulsory acquisition of land only if the decision-maker is satisfied that one of the conditions in subsections (2) to (4) is met.
	(2) The condition is that the application for the order included a request for compulsory acquisition of the land to be authorised.
	(3) The condition is that all persons with an interest in the land consent to the inclusion of the provision.
	(4) The condition is that the prescribed procedure has been followed in relation to the land.'. [Mr. Dhanda.]
	 Brought up, and read the First time.

Parmjit Dhanda: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
	Government new clause 17 Rights in connection with underground gas storage facilities.
	Government new clause 18 Public rights of way: statutory undertakers' apparatus etc..
	Government new clause 19 Extinguishment of rights, and removal of apparatus, of statutory undertakers etc.
	Government new clause 26 Interpretation: land and rights over land.
	Government new clause 37 Application of compulsory acquisition procedure provisions.
	Government amendments Nos. 116 to 151, 153 to 157, 93 to 96, 101, 102, 186, 187, 252, 255 and 269.

Parmjit Dhanda: This set of amendments largely makes technical changes to ensure that the provisions of part 7 of the Bill work correctly on the issues of compulsory acquisition of landin particular, the compulsory acquisition of specially protected categories of land known as special land, and including common land. The definitions can be found in part 7 of the Bill.
	Please excuse me for sounding a bit like a bingo caller, but I must refer to a whole raft of small technical amendments. New clauses 17 and 26, amendments Nos. 93 to 96, 101, 102, 119, 122, 123, 125, 126, 128, 129, 131, 132, 140, 141, 146, 147, 151, 153 to 156, 252, 255 and 269 clarify that development consent orders can authorise the compulsory acquisition of rights over land and compulsorily create new rights over land. I shall address that in a little more detail.
	Those new clauses and amendments are necessary to avoid a situation in which a promoter must unnecessarily purchase the whole of a person's land when all they need is a right over itor under it, such as the right to store natural gas in the subsoil. The amendments provide flexibility and more options for the developer and land owners. New clauses 18 and 19 give protections for statutory undertakers, such as water companies, gas transporters and mobile phone operators, that have apparatus on land that is to be compulsorily acquired. If those statutory undertakers object to the proposed extinguishment of the right of way on the land or the proposed removal of their apparatus from the land, the Secretary of State who sponsors the relevant statutory undertaker would need to consent to the provisions.
	Amendments Nos. 117, 120, 121, 134, 137, 142 and 145 clarify the procedures by which a promoter can propose land as a replacement for special land that it seeks to acquire compulsorilyfor example, common land, allotments or statutory undertakers' land. The Secretary of State can certify that the proposed replacement land is as good as the land that it replaces.
	When a promoter intends to acquire compulsorily common land or rights over common land, the amendments clarify that the Secretary of State must notify those interested in the proposal of his or her intention to certify the promoters' offer of replacement land as acceptable. The amendments also allow the Secretary of State to cause a public inquiry to be held into the proposed package of replacement common land. That strikes us as a common-sense thing to do to ensure fairness.
	The provisions are designed to ensure alignment with existing provisions in the Acquisition of Land Act 1981. New clause 15 clarifies that the decision maker may authorise the compulsory acquisition of land that was not included in the original application if all affected parties consent, or if specified procedures have been followed. Without that amendment, only land identified in the original application could be compulsorily acquired. It is important to allow the decision maker the flexibility to make changes to the draft order if they believe that a decision to approve could be made only on the basis of a project that requires revisions.
	The amendment gives the Secretary of State a power to prescribe the procedures to be followed whenever the decision maker wishes to approve additional compulsory acquisition. We believe it is right for the Secretary of State to set the rules when additional compulsory acquisition is envisaged, in order to ensure that human rights and other interests are respected. We anticipate that these procedures would, at a minimum, ensure that the promoter and all interested parties were notified and may make representations, and that the decision maker must take into account any representations and objections made about the proposed changes.
	Amendments Nos. 124, 127 and 130 clarify who are to be counted as statutory undertakers for the purposes of clauses 114, 115 and 116. That is necessary in order to include companies that have been deemed as statutory undertakers in legislation other than the 1981 Act. The amendments allow for flexibility beyond that Act.
	Amendments Nos. 135, 138, 143 and 148 respond to concerns raised in Committee about the possibility that the promoter of a nationally significant infrastructure project may claim a need to acquire common land compulsorily in order to secure its preservation or preserve its management. The amendments remove that possibility and respond to the requests that were made in Committee.
	Amendments Nos. 136 and 144 respond to concerns raised in Committee about the threshold of 209.03 sq m of common land above which compulsory acquisition can be made only if a package of replacement land is offered, or through special parliamentary procedure. As we described in Committee, that figure was merely a metrification of 250 sq yd. We were asked to round that number down, and we have done so by rounding the threshold down to 200 sq m, which is in line with the existing threshold in the Commons Act 2006.
	Amendment No. 157 clarifies that if a development consent order extinguishes a public right of way, the appropriate authority must order that that right be revived if it becomes clear that the promoter has abandoned proposals to acquire the land covered by the right of way. New clause 37 requires that the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 applies to cases in which compulsory acquisition is authorised by a development consent order unless the order specifies otherwise. There are other ways in which compulsory purchase orders can come about beyond the 1965 Act, so the new clause leaves this open and provides for that flexibility. It also applies the 1965 Act to the acquisition of land where a landowner serves a blight notice because an application that has been submitted proposes its compulsory purchase. That provides safeguards and protection for those whose land may well be blighted as a consequence of the process. Amendments Nos. 186 and 187 make further technical changes to ensure that blight notices following the passage of the Bill are served on the correct authority and identify the appropriate enactment.
	I appreciate that this is a large array of amendments, but they are mostly technical.

David Jones: As the Minister has so comprehensively pointed out, this is a series of detailed amendments required to implement the compulsory acquisition regime that is necessary in order to make the unified consent system work. There are a significant number of amendments, and I hope the Minister will not take it amiss if I gently chide him once again for the fact that their provisions were not included in the Bill originally. It was evident from the moment the Bill was published that a regime for compulsory acquisition would be necessary, and it should have been obvious that that regime would have to be detailed. The details that have been supplied in the amendments clearly make up the deficiency that was so manifestly there, and I am glad that they have been tabled.
	I shall refer to a number of matters, one of which is the right of persons who will be on the receiving end of a compulsory acquisition order to have their representations properly heard. The power compulsorily to acquire land and interests in land is one of the more draconian powers in the hands of the infrastructure planning commission, and it should therefore be used carefully, sparingly and with sensitivity. It is important that the rights of those whose interests will be affected by a compulsory acquisition order should be properly heard and respected. I am worried that when the procedure for inquiries comes to be considered, we will see that the interests of those who are likely to be affected by compulsory acquisition orders are frequently regarded as not primary in the course of those proceedings and may even be discounted altogether. That is not right. The powers that the Bill gives to the commission are very extensive, and if an individual's rights are to be usurped in the manner proposed, albeit legally, their interests should be fully heard.
	New clause 15 provides that an order authorising compulsory acquisition of land may be made only if, inter alia, the prescribed procedure has been followed in relation to the land. I may have missed somethingno doubt the Minister will enlighten mebut I wonder where that prescribed procedure is set out. Clause 112 provides that the Secretary of State may issue guidance about the making of an order granting development consent, which includes provision authorising the compulsory acquisition of land, but that appears to be something less than a prescribed procedure.
	I have nothing further to add, save that for my own part I would have been happier if we had stuck with 250 sq yd and imperial measurements.

Daniel Rogerson: The Minister was clearly aware of the seemingly dry nature of the part of the Bill that he has been asked to shepherd through and has sought to brighten up the occasion with a tie to keep awake anybody who might be nodding offand an excellent tie it is, too.
	The hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) made some serious points about the rights of people who may find themselves subject to compulsory acquisition of land. I am particularly concerned about a point that was raised in Committee, as the Minister will recall. When land is being offered in lieu of something that is being taken away, how can we be sure that it is a suitable replacement? If it is common land, for example, will it be geographically suitable for the people who would be exercising rights upon it in the way that they have done customarily? Indeed, land that is special for any other purpose or reason should be borne in mind when an alternative piece of land is offered. We also have to consider how the process will be arbitrated. If there are questions about whether the land represents appropriate compensation for what has been taken away, there should be recourse to some sort of negotiation.
	The hon. Member for Clwyd, West is right to raise the problem whereby if the compulsory acquisition of land is handled at the time of the development consent order, other issues will obscure the importance or severity of it. People in the community affected in other ways, in far greater number, will have the floor to a greater extent than those affected in a small, personal way that is nevertheless important to that individual. The Government clearly had the desire to speed up the processthey have been clear and up front about that throughoutbut my concern is that the process should be correct and just and that any acquisition must be entirely necessary. If those matters are obscured in some way and rolled up into the process of development consent, some of them might be overlooked.
	I am concerned about some of the changes that are being made, but I welcome the fact that the Government are removing the fog from the proposals and clarifying some of the issues that we explored in Committee.

John McDonnell: I have just a couple of points to make. We are talking about placing an immense power in the hands of the IPC, which will affect a large number of people with regard to major infrastructure developments. I refer hon. Members to early potential expansion of Heathrow. The provisions give immense power for compulsory purchase and the forced removal of people. When it comes to Heathrow, the calculations show that anything up to 10,000 people will be removed from their homes, alongside the loss of three schools, community centres and so on. I would welcome information about the financial support and professional assistance that will be given to those who wish to contest a compulsory acquisition. What additional support will be given to local authorities to represent their constituents in such matters?
	I have a point of detail with regard to BAA. When the industry was a nationalised one, it had specific powers of compulsory purchase. Once it was privatised, those powers were apparently retained, and I would welcome clarity about the powers that it will have on compulsory acquisition of land after this legislation is passed, and with regard to whether it will have any special status above any other private sector company.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I would like to probe the Minister on the procedure for compulsory acquisition. Following on from what the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) said, compulsory acquisition is one of the most severe powers anyone can take to acquire land. Can the Minister clarify what the procedure will be when it becomes clear that the promoter has served notice under new clause 19, or any other provision in the Bill, that compulsory powers are likely to be used? There was some confusion about that in Committee. The Minister said:
	To be clear, people who are subject to compulsory purchase orders as a result of this provision will have exactly the same rights that they have at present. [Official Report, Planning Public Bill Committee, 10 January 2008; c. 150, Q367.]
	I want to probe the Ministermy neighbour in Gloucestershireon the rights that people will have to be heard.
	Under the Compulsory Purchase (Inquiries Procedure) Rules 2007 made by the Lord Chancellor on 15 December 2007, people had the right to be heard orally and in writing, and they had the right to summon witnesses and to cross-examine them. It would not only be landowners who had that right: under rule 6 of the Town and Country Planning (Major Infrastructure Projects Inquiries Procedure) (England) Rules 2005, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) in the oral evidence session, others affected, such as parish or town councils, would have the same rights. I seek to probe the Minister on the right that parties affected by compulsory purchase powers will have to be heard and to summon and cross-examine witnesses. Will they have an absolute right, or will they be able to do so only at the discretion of the IPC commissioner?

Parmjit Dhanda: I thank the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) for his kind remarks about my tie. I am inclined to agree that this grouping relates to one of the more detailed and, some would say, drier aspects of the Bill, but it is an important one, as hon. Members have said.
	People are particularly concerned about homesmy hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned those near Heathrowand under our proposals, those whose homes are subject to compulsory purchase, and other landowners, would have exactly the same rights as they do at present. They would have the same human rights protection as they do now. They will be able to object to a proposal for compulsory purchase, submit evidence to the IPC on why their home should not be purchased and appear at the examination to have their say. As now, they will be able to challenge a decision on compulsory purchase in the courts. Rules on compensation will be the same as now, and disputed compensation will be decided by the Lands Tribunal. The commission would be required to explain how it used powers for compulsory purchase in an annual report to Parliament.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: The Minister has skated over the critical point that I raised. Will objectors to compulsory purchase powers have the absolute right to be heard both orally and in writing? Will they have the power to summon witnesses, and will they have the power to cross-examine those witnesses? I am not talking about going to court, but about the IPC procedure. Will such matters be at the discretion of the IPC commissioner hearing the case?

Parmjit Dhanda: The role of the IPC commissioner is important and we must remember that although the Bill and the legislation set the frameworkand not just through the amendments, which are mostly technicalmost of the framework policy was already in the Bill. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was aware of that. The hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) rightly pointed out that he wants to see more flesh on the bones with regard to the process, as does the hon. Member for North Cornwall, and I was about to refer to that. Although the Bill sets the framework, there will be regulations to provide the detail of the process; we will consult widely on those, and they will have to go through Parliament.

David Jones: We are coming to the relevant amendments later, but do not the new clauses specifically mean that those who seek to be heard on compulsory purchase alone will not necessarily have the right to be heard by the commissioners?

Parmjit Dhanda: Those involved in the process will have the mandatory right to submit evidence and attend a hearing on CPO issues. IPC discretion remains, however, as to whether to allow a cross-examination. It is worth remembering that the CPO process, and the amendments that I have just highlighted, goes a little further by adding flexibility and options for developers and landowners. We are talking about land not being subject to a CPO; ideally, the process would take place in a consensual way where there is usage of the land abovefor example, it may be necessary to bring in a crane to build infrastructureor below, as someone may wish to store gas under the soil. I hope that having the extra options that we are introducing through our amendments will result in consensus far more often.
	There will be times when there is no consensus and when we will have to use other processes, more of which will be set out in regulations. However, the changes that we have made, not least from listening to members of the Committee, together with what was already in the Bill, provide good safeguards for the owners of land, as well as opportunities to go forward with consensus from both developers and landowners.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being very indulgent. His answer has been helpful, but may I press him one more time? I do not want to put words into his mouth, but I think he said that those to whom CPOs will apply, whether they have land or houses, will have an absolute right to appear before an IPC to give evidence either orally or in writing. Can he confirm that I have got that right? Using a CPO to take away someone's home or land is one of the most draconian powers that a Government can use. It is therefore only correct that there should be a right to appear at the IPC hearing to give evidence orally or in writing.

Parmjit Dhanda: I thought that I had confirmed that just a moment ago. I hope that that is helpful.

John McDonnell: My hon. Friend has not addressed the points that I raised. I should be grateful if he could do so at some stage, if not this evening. I should like information on the continuing powers that BAA may have post-privatisation. In addition, new clause 28, which we shall come to later, relates to access to planning aidthat is, financial support for those who are contesting or wish to be representedand refers to planning matters. I seek clarity about whether such aid would be provided to those who were also contesting an order involving the compulsory acquisition of their property or homes.

Parmjit Dhanda: I appreciate my hon. Friend's question about BAA and the changes that would apply. I will seek to provide him with a more detailed answer in writing before we return next week to consider the Bill further.
	This group of amendments has been designed to ensure that proposals that include the compulsory acquisition of land are dealt with properly and that correct levels of protection are given to landowners and, as I mentioned, special types of land. The hon. Member for North Cornwall mentioned special types of land, such as common land. I am grateful to hon. Members who suggested helpful changes in Committee, some of which have been implemented in the package of amendments that we are considering. They set out essential technical changes to deal with the acquisition of rights over land and give protections to landowners, statutory undertakers and the users of rights of way. The provisions set out clear rules and procedures to ensure the protection of the rights of those whose land may be compulsorily acquired.
	I hope that that answers hon. Members' questions and gets across the point that we are making changes that are consistent with existing planning law. Those who fear that their homes, businesses or land are about to be CPO-ed will have the processes that already exist, as well as other options that we are bringing forward, which will provide flexibility.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 17
	  
	Rights in connection with underground gas storage facilities

'(1) This section applies if
	(a) the development to which an order granting development consent relates is development within section 13(1)(c), and
	(b) the order authorises the compulsory acquisition of one or more rights within subsection (2).
	(2) The rights are
	(a) a right to store gas in underground gas storage facilities;
	(b) a right to stop up a well, borehole or shaft, or prevent its use by another person;
	(c) a right of way over land.
	(3) If the right within subsection (2) is an existing right to store gas in underground gas storage facilities, this Act has effect in relation to the compulsory acquisition of the right with the omission of section 118.
	(4) If the order authorises the compulsory acquisition of the right by the creation of a new right within subsection (2), this Act has effect in relation to the compulsory acquisition of the right with the omission of sections 114 to 119.'. [Mr. Dhanda.]
	 Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 18
	  
	Public rights of way: statutory undertakers' apparatus etc.

'(1) The following provisions of this section apply if
	(a) an order granting development consent makes provision for the acquisition of land, compulsorily or by agreement,
	(b) a public right of way exists over the land,
	(c) the right of way is not a right enjoyable by vehicular traffic, and
	(d) the right of way is over land falling within subsection (2).
	(2) Land falls within this subsection if it is land on, over or under which there is
	(a) apparatus belonging to statutory undertakers, or
	(b) electronic communications apparatus kept installed for the purposes of an electronic communications code network.
	(3) The order granting development consent may include provision for the right of way to be extinguished only if the undertakers or the operator of the network (as the case may be) consent to the inclusion of the provision.
	(4) The consent referred to in subsection (3)
	(a) may be given subject to the condition that there are included in the order such provisions for the protection of the undertakers or the operator (as the case may be) as they may reasonably require, and
	(b) must not be unreasonably withheld.
	(5) Any question arising under subsection (4) whether any requirement or refusal is reasonable is to be determined by the Secretary of State.
	(6) The question of which Secretary of State should make a determination under subsection (5) is to be determined by the Treasury, if it arises.
	(7) In this section and section [Extinguishment of rights, and removal of apparatus, of statutory undertakers etc.] statutory undertakers means persons who are, or are deemed to be, statutory undertakers for the purposes of any provision of Part 11 of TCPA 1990.
	(8) In this section and section [Extinguishment of rights, and removal of apparatus, of statutory undertakers etc.] the following terms have the meanings given in paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 17 to the Communications Act 2003 (c. 21)
	electronic communications apparatus;
	electronic communications code;
	electronic communications code network;
	operator.'. [Mr. Dhanda.]
	 Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 19
	  
	Extinguishment of rights, and removal of apparatus, of statutory undertakers etc.

'(1) This section applies if an order granting development consent authorises the acquisition of land (compulsorily or by agreement) and
	(a) there subsists over the land a relevant right, or
	(b) there is on, under or over the land relevant apparatus.
	(2) Relevant right means a right of way, or a right of laying down, erecting, continuing or maintaining apparatus on, under or over the land, which
	(a) is vested in or belongs to statutory undertakers for the purpose of the carrying on of their undertaking, or
	(b) is conferred by or in accordance with the electronic communications code on the operator of an electronic communications code network.
	(3) Relevant apparatus means
	(a) apparatus vested in or belonging to statutory undertakers for the purpose of the carrying on of their undertaking, or
	(b) electronic communications apparatus kept installed for the purposes of an electronic communications code network.
	(4) The order may include provision for the extinguishment of the relevant right, or the removal of the relevant apparatus, only if
	(a) the decision-maker is satisfied that the extinguishment or removal is necessary for the purpose of carrying out the development to which the order relates, and
	(b) in a case within subsection (5), the Secretary of State has consented to the inclusion of the provision.
	(5) A case is within this subsection if a representation has been made about the application for the order granting development consent before the completion of the examination of the application
	(a) in a case falling within subsection (2)(a) or (3)(a), by the statutory undertakers;
	(b) in a case falling within subsection (2)(b) or (3)(b), by the operator of the electronic communications code network,
	and the representation has not been withdrawn.
	(6) The question of which Secretary of State should give consent under subsection (4)(b) is to be determined by the Treasury, if it arises.'. [Mr. Dhanda.]
	 Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 20
	  
	Use of underground gas storage facilities

'An order granting development consent may include provision authorising the use of underground gas storage facilities only if the development to which the order relates is or includes development within section 16(2), (3) or (5).'. [John Healey.]
	 Brought up, and read the First time.

John Healey: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 21 Harbours.
	Government new clause 22 Deemed consent under section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949.
	Government new clause 23 Deemed licences under Part 2 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985.
	Government new clause 24 Removal of consent requirements.
	Government amendments Nos. 114, 115 and 152.
	Government motion: That Clause 120 be transferred to the end of line 8 on page 65.
	Amendment No. 4, in clause 124, page 65, line 22, at end insert
	'(2) An order granting development consent may include provision authorising an electric line to be kept installed above ground only if the decision-maker is satisfied that no person will be exposed to any risk to their health arising from exposure to electric and magnetic fields with a frequency of between 30 and 300 Hertz.'.
	Government amendments Nos. 165 and 250.
	Government new schedule 3 Provision relating to, or to matters ancillary to, development.
	Government amendments Nos. 270 to 274, 276 and 277.

John Healey: We come to a series of new clauses, new schedules and amendments that reflect the further work that we have done and our reflection on the points put to us in discussion.
	New schedule 3 reworks the provisions of clause 109(4) into a new schedule, thereby clearly setting out the matters that may be included in a development consent order. New schedule 3 contains new matters that go beyond those that were previously contained in clause 109. They include the use of underground gas storage facilities; the carrying out of civil engineering and other works; the charging of fares and other fees; the operation and maintenance of a transport system; entering into an agreement for the provision of police services; the transfer of property, rights, liabilities or functions; and the transfer, leasing, suspension, discontinuance and revival of undertakings. In substance, all those matters are taken from the Transport and Works Act 1992 and the Harbours Act 1964, and the terminology relating to many of them has been imported into the Bill.
	Amendment No. 115 also makes it clear that we do not believe it appropriate for the IPC to make provisions that could create byelaws or criminal offences. We recognise that the promoters of nationally significant infrastructure projects may wish to have powers relating to penalty fare regimes or the enforcement of the proper use of infrastructure, through prosecution for trespass or the breaking of speed limits, for instance. However, we remain of the view that in such circumstances an application should properly be made to the Secretary of State for a Transport and Works Act order or a Harbours Act order, as currently.
	Let me deal with Government new clauses 22 and 23, Government amendments Nos. 165 and 270, and Government amendment No. 88, which was in the first group of amendments that we considered. These measures set out a single or harmonised procedure for dealing with the major consents that are needed for offshore development, which are a consent under section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949, or a licence under the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985. Those consents will be treated differently from other aspects of the single consents regime. The new clauses and amendments will not disapply the need to seek consents under those Acts, but will allow development consent orders from the IPC to deem consents that must otherwise be applied for under those Acts.
	We have decided to make the CPA and FEPA consents into deemed consents to facilitate enforcement offshore. As the Bill stands without those amendments, the Secretary of State would lose the power to require the owner of infrastructure offshore to take action to prevent a danger to navigation. The provision is important and justifies the CPA consent being a deemed consent. Amendment No. 165 clarifies that enforcement of those consents should be carried out under the enforcement mechanisms in the CPA and the FEPA rather than under the Bill.
	For harbours, the overall regulatory structure is different from the large majority of infrastructure types covered by the Bill. With most infrastructure types, a company or person has the ability to undertake whatever development they wish, subject to receiving a certain number of consents or regulatory authorisations. With harbours, a company has no such powers until it receives statutory powers under an order made under the Harbours Act 1964. New clause 21 reflects the fact that a harbour proposal that is a nationally significant infrastructure project, or NSIP, will almost inevitably require changes to the statutory powers held by a harbour authority or the grant of fresh powers to create a new harbour authority. The new clause allows the decision maker to include in a development consent order provisions to allow the creation of a harbour authority or the revision of provisions governing an existing harbour authority.
	There will be restrictions on what can be included in a development consent order in relation to a harbour, the most notable of which are set out in amendment No. 115, which I have mentioned. Furthermore, such an order may provide for the creation of a harbour authority only if it is necessary or expedient for a harbour proposal that is an NSIP application. A development consent order will provide for the transfer of property, rights or liabilities between one harbour authority and another only if the order deals also with compensatory payments.
	New clause 24 makes it clear that the IPC cannot use the powers in the Bill to override the requirements of operational consents unless the relevant consenting body agrees. We drew the measure from the operation of the Transport and Works Act 1992 and the orders that have been put in place under it. Experience tells us that it can be of benefit to promoters to incorporate certain operational consents into the original authorisation to proceed. However, the position and rights of the bodies that grant operational consents, a leading example of which is the Environment Agency, must be protected. Under the new clause, they must therefore agree to provisions in the development consent order that would override a requirement otherwise to seek operational consent from them. That is what happens under the Transport and Works Act with authorisations for the discharge of water, for example. Several operational consents are devolved matters, and we intend to preserve the devolution settlement, so there is a similar provision in relation to the Welsh Assembly Government.
	Finally, let me address the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon), who is not in his place. I pay tribute to the way in which he raised his concerns in Committee and to how his colleague, the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd), expressed similar concerns in the Committee that debated the Housing and Regeneration Bill. In the Committee that discussed the Energy Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) also raised concerns about the health effects of electromagnetic fields.
	In Committee, we discussed at some length frequencies known as extremely low frequency electric and magnetic fields, to which I shall refer as ELF EMFs. The main sources of ELF EMFs are power lines, electricity sub-stations, household wiring and electrical appliances in the home. The Government do not believe that the proposed duty on the decision makerin this case the IPCis necessary or appropriate at this stage because there are already guidelines on the exposure of people to ELF EMFs.
	The hon. Member for Newbury will know that the Government are considering whether any further practical, precautionary measures should be put in place to strengthen the concern to protect people from the possible effects of that sort of radiation. In doing so, we are giving full consideration to the report of the Stakeholder Advisory Group on ELF EMF and to the Health Protection Agency's recommendations on that report. When we draw the matter to a conclusion, we will consider how to implement any precautionary measures that might be justified, which will be implemented at national level.
	I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise, as he did in Committee, that it would not be sensible, at this stage of this Bill, to pre-empt the conclusions and recommendations that might flow from the report. I pay tribute to him for his tenacity and commitment in raising these concerns, but I urge him not to press his amendments to a vote, and to accept that any policy or precautionary protective changes that might be necessary in future will be put in place by the Government as a result of the conclusions that we reach, based on the SAGE and HPA reports. I hope that my comments help the House with the consideration of this group of new clauses and amendments, and I look forward to the debate.

David Jones: We are again debating a large number of extensive and technical amendments to the Bill, and I am sure that the Minister will be glad to hear that I shall not berate him again for the lateness of their appearance. However, there are several matters that I wish to raise.
	The Minister discussed new clause 21, which relates to harbours and contains powers providing for the creation of harbour authorities. It also contains powers to change the powers and duties of harbour authorities and to authorise the transfer of property rights and liabilities from one harbour authority to another. Will he comment on the fact that in many cases, applicants for development consent under the proposals in the Bill will be harbour authorities? Is it proposed that in such circumstances the rights in the new harbours would simply be vested in the new harbour authorities, or would further procedures have to be undergone to achieve that transference?
	In a previous debate today, I referred to general permitted development rights in the context of railways. At that point, the Minister suggested that although such rights were not specifically mentioned in certain clauses of the Bill, that did not mean that they would not be preservedfor harbour authorities, for example. I should simply like to place on record that I have noted that point, as I have no doubt that others will place reliance on it.
	New clause 24 makes this provision:
	An order granting development consent may include provision the effect of which is to remove a requirement for a prescribed consent or authorisation to be granted, only if the relevant body has consented to the inclusion of the provision.
	The relevant body is defined as
	the person or body which would otherwise be required to grant the prescribed consent or authorisation.
	At first sight, that appears to be anomalous, given that clause 31one of the linchpins of the Bill, and, indeed, of the whole single consent regimeprovides for the other sorts of consent that might normally need to be obtained to be dispensed with. Will the Minister please explain the purpose of new clause 24, in the context of the provisions in clause 31? Is there a conflict between the two provisions? At first sight, there appears to be one.
	The Minister has also mentioned that the new clauses specifically preclude the imposition of new byelaws or the grant of authority to others to impose such byelaws. Again, that appears strange, given that many of the entities that will be created by the Billparticularly those covered by this group of amendments, including harbour authoritieswill have the right to impose byelaws. Given the wide-ranging, sweeping powers that will be granted to the IPC by the Bill, even to the extent of enabling it to amend primary legislation, it seems odd that the power to confer the right to make byelaws has specifically been excluded. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that.
	New clause 23 provides:
	An order granting development consent may include provision deeming a licence to have been issued under Part 2 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985.
	That relates, inter alia, to the laying of installations on the sea bed. The deemed licence is limited to England and English waters, or to a renewable energy zone designated under section 1(7) of the Continental Shelf Act 1964, except any part of that area that is part of the Scottish renewable energy zone. Please will the Minister explain why the new clause does not relate to Welsh waters, especially in the light of the fact that large-scale offshore wind developmentsa reserved matterwill probably require a licence to be made under the 1985 Act?
	Finally, I should like to apologise for the absence from the Chamber of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon). I am sure that he will appreciate the thoughtful and kind way in which the Minister has dealt with his proposed amendments, and I am authorised to say that my hon. Friend would have sought to withdraw them.

Daniel Rogerson: As we heard in our debate on the programme motion, we are working under considerable time constraints. We have another two groups of amendments to discuss in the next hour, so I shall not detain the House for long. I simply want to note that another whole area of authorities is being given to this unelected body, which will be able to take decisions on matters such as setting up a new harbour authority, for example. We have already discussed the IPC, the broad range of competencies and skills that its commissioners will need to have, and the information that they will have to contend with. While I suppose that it makes sense to have provisions that will enable development to be considered and put in place at the granting of a development consent order, this will mean that the IPC will have to get to grips with a whole new set of competencies. I am concerned about the organisation's ability to do these things adequately and properly within the necessary time scales.
	The hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) has already referred to a number of the problems arising from the new clauses. Perhaps I have misunderstood new clause 22I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify the matterwhen it talks about section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949. It seems to suggest that people who do not comply when consent is deemed to have been given without conditions will not be subject to enforcement mechanisms under clause 134 of the Bill. The Minister might wish to reflect on this point and to check whether my understanding is correct. I am concerned that there should not be any loosening of the strictures that would be placed on people under the existing legislation, to which the Bill refers, when bringing these matters under the remit of the IPC. Marine protection is a sensitive area, and there will shortly be a Bill to consider all those issues. I want to ensure that there will be no watering down of any conditions, and that enforcement will take place if any action taken under a DCO is questioned.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I wonder whether the Minister could help the House. Clause 109 contains a long list of what may be included in an order granting development consent. Presumably, those are the really important things, as they will be in the main order. The Minister has tabled new schedule 3 today, which relates to matters ancillary to development. One might assume that those matters were less important, because they are ancillary. In the original clause, there are 26 items, but in the new schedule, there are no fewer than 38. A quick scan of what is included in each of the provisions reveals that the items in the new schedule include carrying out civil engineering or other works, and entering into an agreement for the provision of police services. In addition, item 28 relates to:
	Deeming any such conditions to have been imposed by the Secretary of State under that section.
	Item 29 relates to:
	Deeming a licence under Part 2 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985...to have been issued.
	Item 30 relates to:
	Deeming any such provisions to have been included in the licence by the specified licensing authority by virtue of that Act.
	I understand why items 31 to 34 were not included in the original provision, but it seems odd to have included them among the ancillary items, because they are important. They include: the creation of a harbour authority; changing the powers and duties of a harbour authority; the transfer of property, rights, liabilities, or functions; and the transfer, leasing, suspension, discontinuance and revival of undertakings.
	I think that the Minister said that the list in new schedule 3 was from the Transport and Works Act 1992. I cannot remember the exact wording of the Act. I would be grateful if he could tell us why the list of main items in clause 109 is less inclusive than the list of ancillary items.

John Healey: A series of important points, some of which I touched on, have been made, but I shall deal with themI hope adequatelyin my response to the debate.
	First, I say to the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) that we believe that what we have under the current regimethe range of provisions that a decision maker, which in this case is the IPC, can include in development consent ordersis the right mix.
	Our starting principle has been to try to ensure that, as far as possible, orders that grant development consent cover all the consents and authorisations to proceedif that is the judgment of the commission and the judgment on the applicationnecessary for the nationally significant infrastructure project to proceed.
	As I described earlier this afternoon, that is one of the important prizes in the overall reforms that we propose in the Bill. However, we believe that two aspectsbylaws in particular and powers to make criminal offencesfall into what I suppose is a different category. We do not believe that, on its own, the IPC should decide such matters, nor should promoters apply simply to the IPC for them to be included in a development consent order. So, we have constructed the Bill in such a way that promoters may continue, as they do now, to apply separately under the Transport and Works Act 1992 and the Harbours Act 1964 if they want bylaw-making powers or the powers to create criminal offences for particular reasons related to their project. Government amendment No. 115 applies not simply to harbour developments; it applies to the 1992 Act and the 1964 Act together.
	The hon. Member for Clwyd, West probed a little further on harbours. New clause 21 allows the inclusion in a development consent order of the creation of a new harbour authority or the revision of provisions governing an existing harbour authority. That is expressed in schedule 2 to the 1964 Act. I did not spell that out before, but these remarks might be helpful because he was probing to find out precisely what that might entail.
	The schedule includes such things as the creation of a harbour authority, including the approval of a constitution; the conferring of powers and duties; setting the jurisdiction of the authority and allowing it to ask a justice of the peace to appoint constables; the revision of a harbour authority or the merging of two harbour authorities into one; the transfer of property from one harbour authority to another; the disposal of property vested in a harbour authority; and the charging of tolls, fares and other charges. That is the range of provision in existing legislation that we propose potentially to make available, where it is justified, as part of the single development consent.
	On coastal protection, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) wants an assurance, particularly with the Marine Bill in prospect, that there will be no watering down of enforcement powers. Precisely for that reason, we are taking the approach that we are. Rather than make the Bill disapply the need for consents either under the Coastal Protection Act 1949 or under the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985, we are making the consent a deemed consent precisely so that the full range of enforcement powers under both Acts remains in place and can be discharged.
	The amendments delete the references to the 1949 Act, reinserting them as a deemed consent. They also insert in the Bill, for the first time, licences under the 1985 Act, again as deemed licences. We have done that to make the enforcement provisions as strong as they are at present. That gives the Secretary of State the same power to intervene in an emergency to require the owner of infrastructure offshore to take certain actions that may be required to prevent a danger to navigation. However, because those powers are operational only where what is termed a section 34 consent is in place, they will not be operational if a development consent order has disapplied rather than deemed as part of the consent agreement; otherwise, the Secretary of State would lose the powers that he needs at the moment.
	To return to the starting point of the hon. Gentleman's concern, the Marine Bill will rework the regulatory regime for offshore development by streamlining the CPA consents and FEPA licences in a single regime. Uniform enforcement would be facilitated if the IPC deemed consents in respect of offshore nationally significant infrastructure project consents. That is the purpose of our amendment No. 165, clarifying, therefore, the fact that enforcement for those consents is to be carried out under those two existing provisions, which will, in time, be consolidated in the new Marine Bill. Incidentally, they will be enforced through the new marine management organisation.
	Finally, the hon. Gentleman was concerned about the breadth of the powers in relation to harbours. I have explained the restrictions under amendment No. 115. I have confirmed that the development consent orders will not allow the creation or modification of bylaws or criminal offences and why we believe that is right. I make it clear to the House that the development consent order for harbours will be able to provide for the creation of the harbour authority only where that is necessary or expedient in relation to a particular harbour nationally significant infrastructure project application.
	I say to the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) that the fact that different items are listed in the Bill and in the proposal that we are making does not make any of those things less important. I tried to explain earlier that we are consolidating what we already have in clause 109(4) in new schedule 3 and adding items that we think are appropriate but that are not yet in that list. That is why the proposed list is longer and more comprehensive, and therefore a better reflection of the matters that may be required within a single development consent order, as well as appropriate for the commission to consider as part of any application, if that is what the promoter decides.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am extremely grateful to the Minister for those helpful remarks, but some of the powers in new schedule 3 are very wide indeed. The basic building block of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 were civil and other engineering works. What safeguards will there be for people who are affected by an IPC decision that those powers are strictly necessary for a development? Will there be any appeal mechanism? Will there be a mechanism for appeal to the courts through judicial review? How will this work?

John Healey: The hon. Gentleman tempts me into territory that we shall deal with at length in debates to come. Essentially, the Bill contains a number of new steps, including, for the first time, a legal duty and requirement on any promoter of an application or a project to consult widelylocal councils and local communitiesin preparing an application. So, promoters must make clear the degree to which they want to include in a single application elements covering any of those areas as part of the consent application.
	The commission will not even receive and consider any application unless the pre-application requirements have been properly carried out. Then, any local interest, local group, local resident, local council or anyone concerned will have the right through the application process to register their concern in writing, and will have the right to be heard orally as part of one of the sessions that the IPC will conduct. Therefore, they can alert the IPC to areas that perhaps require questioning by the commission of the promoter during consideration of an application. There should be ample information and publication, proper cross-questioning and full consideration of any elements such as this that may form part of an application for a single consent.
	I hope that what I have said helps the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 21
	  
	Harbours

'(1) An order granting development consent may include provision for the creation of a harbour authority only if
	(a) the development to which the order relates is or includes the construction or alteration of harbour facilities, and
	(b) the creation of a harbour authority is necessary or expedient for the purposes of the development.
	(2) An order granting development consent may include provision changing the powers or duties of a harbour authority only if
	(a) the development to which the order relates is or includes the construction or alteration of harbour facilities, and
	(b) the authority has requested the inclusion of the provision or has consented in writing to its inclusion.
	(3) An order granting development consent may include provision authorising the transfer of property, rights or liabilities from one harbour authority to another only if
	(a) the development to which the order relates is or includes the construction or alteration of harbour facilities, and
	(b) the order makes provision for the payment of compensation of an amount
	(i) determined in accordance with the order, or
	(ii) agreed between the parties to the transfer.
	(4) An order granting development consent which includes provision for the creation of a harbour authority, or changing the powers or duties of a harbour authority, may also make other provision in relation to the authority.
	This is subject to subsection (6).
	(5) Subject to subsection (6), the provision which may be included in relation to a harbour authority includes in particular
	(a) any provision in relation to a harbour authority which could be included in a harbour revision order under section 14 of the Harbours Act 1964 by virtue of any provision of Schedule 2 to that Act;
	(b) provision conferring power on the authority to change provision made in relation to it (by the order or by virtue of this paragraph), where the provision is about
	(i) the procedures (including financial procedures) of the authority;
	(ii) the power of the authority to impose charges;
	(iii) the power of the authority to delegate any of its functions;
	(iv) the welfare of officers and employees of the authority and financial and other provision made for them.
	(6) The order may not include provision
	(a) which, by virtue of any other provision of this Act, is not permitted to be included in an order granting development consent;
	(b) conferring power on a harbour authority to delegate, or makes changes to its powers so as to permit the delegation of, any of the functions mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (f) of paragraph 9B of Schedule 2 to the Harbours Act 1964.'. [John Healey.]
	 Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 22
	  
	Deemed consent under section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949

'(1) An order granting development consent may include provision deeming consent under section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949 to have been given for any operations only if the operations are to be carried out wholly in one or more of the areas specified in subsection (2).
	(2) The areas are
	(a) England;
	(b) Wales;
	(c) waters adjacent to England or Wales up to the seaward limits of the territorial sea;
	(d) an area designated under section 1(7) of the Continental Shelf Act 1964.
	(3) Subsection (4) applies if an order granting development consent includes provision
	(a) deeming consent under section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949 to have been given subject to specified conditions, and
	(b) deeming those conditions to have been imposed by the Secretary of State under that section.
	(4) A person who fails to comply with such a condition does not commit an offence under section 134 of this Act.'. [John Healey.]
	 Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 23
	  
	Deemed licences under Part 2 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985

'(1) An order granting development consent may include provision deeming a licence to have been issued under Part 2 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 for any operations only if the operations are to be carried out wholly in one or more of the areas specified in subsection (2).
	(2) The areas are
	(a) England;
	(b) waters adjacent to England up to the seaward limits of the territorial sea;
	(c) a Renewable Energy Zone, except any part of a Renewable Energy Zone in relation to which the Scottish Ministers have functions;
	(d) an area designated under section 1(7) of the Continental Shelf Act 1964, except any part of that area which is within a part of a Renewable Energy Zone in relation to which the Scottish Ministers have functions.
	(3) Subsections (4) and (5) apply if an order granting development consent includes provision
	(a) deeming a licence to have been issued under Part 2 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 subject to specified provisions, and
	(b) deeming those provisions to have been included in the licence by virtue of that Act.
	(4) A person who fails to comply with such a provision does not commit an offence under section 134 of this Act.
	(5) Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Schedule 3 to the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 (licences: right to make representations etc.) do not apply in relation to the deemed licence.'. [John Healey.]
	 Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 24
	  
	Removal of consent requirements

'(1) An order granting development consent may include provision the effect of which is to remove a requirement for a prescribed consent or authorisation to be granted, only if the relevant body has consented to the inclusion of the provision.
	(2) The relevant body is the person or body which would otherwise be required to grant the prescribed consent or authorisation.'. [John Healey.]
	 Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 26
	  
	Interpretation: land and rights over land

'(1) This section applies for the purposes of this Part.
	(2) Land includes any interest in or right over land.
	(3) Acquiring a right over land includes acquiring it by the creation of a new right as well as by the acquisition of an existing one.'. [John Healey.]
	 Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 37
	  
	Application of compulsory acquisition procedure provisions

'(1) This section applies if an order granting development consent includes provision authorising the compulsory acquisition of land.
	(2) Part 1 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 (procedure for compulsory purchase) applies to the compulsory acquisition of land under the order
	(a) as it applies to a compulsory purchase to which Part 2 of the Acquisition of Land Act 1981 applies, and
	(b) as if the order were a compulsory purchase order under that Act.
	(3) Part 1 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965, as applied by subsection (2), has effect with the omission of the following provisions
	(a) section 4 (time limit for exercise of compulsory purchase powers);
	(b) paragraph 3(3) of Schedule 3 (provision as to giving of bonds).
	(4) In so far as the order includes provision authorising the compulsory acquisition of land in Scotland
	(a) subsections (2) and (3) do not apply, and
	(b) the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) (Scotland) Act 1947 (the 1947 Act) applies to the compulsory acquisition of that land under the order as if the order were a compulsory purchase order as defined in section 1(1) of that Act.
	(5) The 1947 Act, as applied by subsection (4), has effect with the omission of the following provisions
	(a) Parts 2 and 3 of the First Schedule (compulsory purchase by Ministers and special provisions as to certain descriptions of land);
	(b) section 116 of the Lands Clauses Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1845 (time limit for exercise of compulsory purchase powers) (that section being incorporated into the 1947 Act by paragraph 1 of the Second Schedule to the 1947 Act).
	(6) Subsections (2) to (5) are subject to any contrary provision made by the order granting development consent.'. [John Healey.]
	 Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 109
	  
	What may be included in order granting development consent

Amendments made: No. 114, page 56, line 15, leave out from 'The' to end of line 10 on page 57 and insert
	'provision that may be made under subsection (3) includes in particular provision for or relating to any of the matters listed in Part 1 of Schedule (Provision relating to, or to matters ancillary to, development)'.
	No. 115, page 57, line 25, leave out from '(8)' to end of line and insert
	'Subsections (3) to (7) are subject to subsection (8A) and the following provisions of this Chapter.
	'(8A) An order granting development consent may not include provision
	(a) making byelaws or conferring power to make byelaws;
	(b) creating offences or conferring power to create offences;
	(c) changing an existing power to make byelaws or create offences.
	(8B) To the extent that provision for or relating to a matter may be included in an order granting development consent, none of the following may include any such provision
	(a) an order under section 14 or 16 of the Harbours Act 1964 (orders in relation to harbours, docks and wharves);
	(b) an order under section 4(1) of the Gas Act 1965 (order authorising storage of gas in underground strata);
	(c) an order under section 1 or 3 of the Transport and Works Act 1992 (orders as to railways, tramways, inland waterways etc.).'.
	No. 116, line 26, leave out subsection (9). [John Healey.]

Clause 114
	  
	Statutory undertakers' land

Amendments made: No. 117, page 59, line 17, leave out from 'that' to end of line 22 and insert 'the Secretary of State
	(a) is satisfied of the matters set out in subsection (3), and
	(b) issues a certificate to that effect.'.
	No. 118, line 28, at end insert
	'(3A) Subsections (2) and (3) do not apply in a case within subsection (4).'.
	No. 119, line 30, leave out 'relevant'.
	No. 120, line 31, leave out from 'that' to end of line 36 and insert 'the Secretary of State
	(a) is satisfied of the matters set out in subsection (5), and
	(b) issues a certificate to that effect.'.
	No. 121, line 42, at end insert
	'(5A) If the Secretary of State issues a certificate under subsection (2) or (4), the Secretary of State must
	(a) publish in one or more local newspapers circulating in the locality in which the statutory undertakers' land is situated a notice in the prescribed form that the certificate has been given, and
	(b) in a case where a Panel or the Council is the decision-maker, notify the Commission that the certificate has been given.'.
	No. 122, line 44, leave out from beginning to end of line 45.
	No. 123, line 46, leave out 'that Act' and insert 'the Acquisition of Land Act 1981'.
	No. 124, line 47,, after first 'undertakers', insert '
	(a) which are deemed to be statutory undertakers for the purposes of that Act, by virtue of another enactment;
	(b) '. [John Healey.]

Clause 115
	  
	local authority land and statutory undertakers' land: general

Amendments made: No. 125, page 60, line 16, leave out from 'applies' to end of line 18.
	No. 126, leave out line 30.
	No. 127, line 32, after first 'undertakers', insert '
	(a) which are deemed to be statutory undertakers for the purposes of that Act, by virtue of another enactment;
	(b) '. [John Healey.]

Clause 116
	  
	local authority and statutory undertakers' land: acquisition by public body

Amendments made: No. 128, page 60, line 41, leave out 'an interest in'.
	No. 129, line 42, leave out 'interest' and insert 'land'.
	No. 130, page 61, line 8, after 'undertakers', insert '
	(a) which are deemed to be statutory undertakers for the purposes of that Act, by virtue of another enactment;
	(b) '. [John Healey.]

Clause 117
	  
	national trust land

Amendments made: No. 131, page 61, line 18, leave out from 'applies' to end of line 20.
	No. 132, line 34, leave out from beginning to end of line 35. [John Healey.]

Clause 118
	  
	commons, open spaces etc: compulsory acquisition of land

Amendments made: No. 133, page 61, line 38, at end insert
	'(1A) This section does not apply in a case to which section 119 applies.'.
	No. 134, line 41, leave out from 'unless' to end of line 3 on page 62 and insert 'the Secretary of State
	(a) is satisfied that subsection (3) or (5) applies, and
	(b) issues a certificate to that effect.'.
	No. 135, page 62, line 10, leave out subsection (4).
	No. 136, line 13, leave out '209.03' and insert '200'.
	No. 137, line 18, at end insert
	'(5A) If the Secretary of State proposes to issue a certificate under subsection (2), the Secretary of State must
	(a) give notice of the proposal or direct the person who applied for the order granting development consent to do so, and
	(b) give any persons interested in the proposal an opportunity to make representations about the proposal.
	(5B) The Secretary of State may also cause a public local inquiry to be held in relation to the proposal.
	(5C) The Secretary of State may issue the certificate only after considering
	(a) any representations made about the proposal, and
	(b) if an inquiry has been held under subsection (5B), the report of the person who held the inquiry.
	(5D) Notice under subsection (5A)(a) must be given in such form and manner as the Secretary of State may direct.
	(5E) If the Secretary of State issues a certificate under subsection (2), the Secretary of State must
	(a) publish in one or more local newspapers circulating in the locality in which the order land is situated a notice in the prescribed form that the certificate has been given, or direct the person who applied for the order granting development consent to do so, and
	(b) in a case where a Panel or the Council is the decision-maker, notify the Commission that the certificate has been given, or direct the person who applied for the order granting development consent to do so.'.
	No. 138, line 26, leave out subsection (7).
	No. 139, line 28, leave out from 'common' to end of line 33 and insert
	', fuel or field garden allotment and open space have the same meanings as in section 19 of the Acquisition of Land Act 1981;'. [John Healey.]

Clause 119
	  
	commmons, open spaces etc. compulsory acquisition of rights over land

Amendments made: No. 140, page 62, line 45, leave out 'relevant'.
	No. 141, line 45, after 'applies', insert
	'by the creation of a new right over land'.
	No. 142, line 45, leave out from 'unless' to end of line 5 on page 63 and insert 'the Secretary of State
	(a) is satisfied that one of subsections (3) to (6) applies, and
	(b) issues a certificate to that effect.'.
	No. 143, page 63, line 18, leave out subsection (5).
	No. 144, line 21, leave out '209.03' and insert '200'.
	No. 145, line 27, at end insert
	'(6A) If the Secretary of State proposes to issue a certificate under subsection (2), the Secretary of State must
	(a) give notice of the proposal or direct the person who applied for the order granting development consent to do so, and
	(b) give any persons interested in the proposal an opportunity to make representations about the proposal.
	(6B) The Secretary of State may also cause a public local inquiry to be held in relation to the proposal.
	(6C) The Secretary of State may issue the certificate only after considering
	(a) any representations made about the proposal, and
	(b) if an inquiry has been held under subsection (6B), the report of the person who held the inquiry.
	(6D) Notice under subsection (6A)(a) must be given in such form and manner as the Secretary of State may direct.
	(6E) If the Secretary of State issues a certificate under subsection (2), the Secretary of State must
	(a) publish in one or more local newspapers circulating in the locality in which the order land is situated a notice in the prescribed form that the certificate has been given, or direct the person who applied for the order granting development consent to do so, and
	(b) in a case where a Panel or the Council is the decision-maker, notify the Commission that the certificate has been given, or direct the person who applied for the order granting development consent to do so.'.
	No. 146, line 29, leave out 'relevant'.
	No. 147, line 29, after 'applies', insert
	'by the creation of a new right over land'.
	No. 148, line 38, leave out subsection (8).
	No. 149, line 41, leave out '118' and insert
	'19 of the Acquisition of Land Act 1981'.
	No. 150, line 44, leave out 'relevant'.
	No. 151, line 46, leave out from beginning to end of line 47. [John Healey.]

Clause 120
	  
	crown land

Amendment made: No. 152, page 64, line 13, at end insert
	'(2) An order granting development consent may include any other provision applying in relation to Crown land, or rights benefiting the Crown, only if the appropriate Crown authority consents to the inclusion of the provision.
	(3) The reference in subsection (2) to rights benefiting the Crown does not include rights which benefit the general public.
	(4) For the purposes of this section the Crown includes
	(a) the Duchy of Lancaster;
	(b) the Duchy of Cornwall;
	(c) the Speaker of the House of Lords;
	(d) the Speaker of the House of Commons;
	(e) the Corporate Officer of the House of Lords;
	(f) the Corporate Officer of the House of Commons.'. [John Healey.]
	 Ordered , That clause 120 be transferred to the end of line 8 on page 65. [John Healey.]

Clause 121
	  
	notice of authorisation of compulsory acquisition

Amendments made: No. 153, page 64, line 20, leave out from 'means' to end of line and insert
	'
	(a) in a case where the order granting development consent authorises the compulsory acquisition of a right over land by the creation of a new right, the land over which the right is to be exercisable;(b) in any other case where the order granting development consent authorises the compulsory acquisition of land, the land authorised to be compulsorily acquired;'.
	No. 154, line 21, leave out from 'means' to end of line 22 and insert
	'
	(a) in a case where the order granting development consent authorises the compulsory acquisition of a right over land by the creation of a new right, the person for whose benefit the order authorises the creation of the right;(b) in any other case where the order granting development consent authorises the compulsory acquisition of land, the person authorised by the order to compulsorily acquire the land.'.
	No. 155, line 43, at end insert
	'(aa) in a case where the order granting development consent authorises the compulsory acquisition of a right over land by the creation of a new right, describing the right,'.
	No. 156, page 65, line 2, after 'authorising', insert
	'the compulsory acquisition of a right over the land by the creation of a right over it or (as the case may be)'. [John Healey.]

Clause 122
	  
	public rights of way

Amendment made: No. 157, page 65, line 13, at end insert
	'(2) The following provisions of this section apply if
	(a) an order granting development consent makes provision for the acquisition of land, compulsorily or by agreement,
	(b) the order extinguishes a public right of way over the land, and
	(c) the right of way is not a right enjoyable by vehicular traffic.
	(3) The order granting development consent may not provide for the right of way to be extinguished from a date which is earlier than the date on which the order is published.
	(4) Subsection (5) applies if
	(a) the order granting development consent extinguishes the right of way from a date (the extinguishment date) which is earlier than the date on which the acquisition of the land is completed, and
	(b) at any time after the extinguishment date it appears to the appropriate authority that the proposal to acquire the land has been abandoned.
	(5) The appropriate authority must by order direct that the right is to revive.
	(6) The appropriate authority is
	(a) if the order granting development consent was made by a Panel or the Council, the Commission;
	(b) in any other case, the Secretary of State.
	(7) Nothing in subsection (5) prevents the making of a further order extinguishing the right of way.'. [John Healey.]

Clause 126
	  
	highways

Amendments made: No. 158, page 65, line 39, leave out 'proposed'.
	No. 159, page 66, line 2, leave out 'proposed'.
	No. 160, line 8, after 'construction', insert 'or improvement'. [John Healey.]

New Clause 27
	  
	The relevant local planning authority

'(1) This section applies for the purposes of this Part.
	(2) The relevant local planning authority in relation to any land is the local planning authority for the area in which the land is situated.
	This is subject to subsections (3) to (5).
	(3) Subsections (4) and (5) apply if the land is in an area for which there is both a district planning authority and a county planning authority.
	(4) If any of the relevant development is the construction or alteration of a hazardous waste facility within section 13(1)(o), the relevant local planning authority is the county planning authority.
	(5) In any other case, the relevant local planning authority is the district planning authority.
	(6) The relevant development is
	(a) if the relevant offence is an offence under section 133 or 134(1)(a), the development referred to in section 133(1) or 134(1)(a);
	(b) if the relevant offence is an offence under section 134(1)(b), the development to which the order granting development consent mentioned in section 134(1)(b) relates.
	(7) The relevant offence is the offence by reference to which a provision of this Part confers a function on a local planning authority.'. [Mr. Dhanda.]
	 Brought up, and read the First time.

Parmjit Dhanda: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
	Government amendments Nos. 167 to 183 and 279

Parmjit Dhanda: Amendment No. 167 responds to points made in Committee by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), which were also made by his friends in the Law Society. In particular, the hon. Gentleman identified a loophole in clause 135, whereby a local authority could indefinitely extend the period in which enforcement action may be taken against a promoter.
	The amendment will allow local authorities to extend the enforcement period by issuing an information notice or seeking an injunction only in the four years following completion of a development or the point at which the breach of any requirements occurred. That changes the current drafting, which removes the four-year time limit for bringing prosecutions in cases in which a local authority has served an information notice under clause 140 every four years, or made an application for an injunction without imposing an extended time limit within which a prosecution must be brought. As members of the Committee will recall, the original drafting allowed the continual submission of information requests to cause the possibility of enforcement to hang over a developer for many years. We are grateful to the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst for making that clear to us. The amendment will prevent the four-year period from perennially recurring.
	New clause 27 and the consequential amendments Nos. 168 to 183 cover a different matter relating to who can take enforcement action. Under part 8, any local authority could initiate such action, whether or not it took place in its local area. We believe that it should be for the authority whose area contains the development to decide whether unauthorised development has taken place and whether enforcement action is necessary. The new clause prevents any old authority, whether or not it is at all close to the development in question, from submitting an objection willy-nilly. It also clarifies which is the relevant local planning authority in areas where district and county authorities overlap. County authorities will have responsibility in the case of nationally significant infrastructure projects involving, for example, hazardous waste.
	Amendment No. 279 makes a minor change to the Housing and Regeneration Bill, clause 13 of which sets out the planning functions that can be conferred on the Homes and Communities Agency. That reflects existing powers in relation to English Partnerships. One of the functions is enforcement, under both the Town and Country Planning Act and part 8 of this Bill. However, as the Housing and Regeneration Bill will receive Royal Assent before this Bill, references to the Planning Act 2008 must be removed and added as a consequential amendment on Royal Assent for the Planning Bill.

David Jones: As I want to raise other matters later, I shall not delay the House for long.
	I am delighted that the Government have accepted the objection raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) to the original drafting and tabled their own amendment, which we welcome wholeheartedly. However, I want to make a minor point about the Minister's reference to the relevant planning authority under new clause 27. He said that the relevant authority in the case of, for example, hazardous waste was the county planning authority. I believe that it is the relevant authority exclusively in the case of hazardous waste. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that.

Daniel Rogerson: I agree with the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) that we should use the time available as economically as possible.
	I fear that new clause 27 does nothing to help local authorities to deal with the responsibility that they are being given. The power to make decisions on an important scheme will be denied to them, but the responsibility for clearing up any mess will rest firmly with them.
	I think it right for local authorities to be responsible for enforcement, but will they have the necessary resources? Some very technical conditions may be imposed. There are excellent planners in local government, but not many in each authority because of recruitment and training difficulties, and not enough of them given the number of applications with which they must deal. Certain authorities will have a huge burden placed on them. Although that does not necessarily relate directly to the specific wording of the new clause, I consider it an important point, and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to it.

Parmjit Dhanda: As much as it pains me to admit it, the hon. Member for Clwyd, West is quite right. I cannot think of any area other than hazardous waste, so he is correct. I disagree with the hon. Member for North Cornwall. I think this is a great opportunity for the IPC and local authorities to work in partnership. As the local delivery agency, the local authority is the right agency to be inspecting nationally significant infrastructure projects. Local authorities have a vested interest, so giving them the power to serve these notices for information, and allowing them to set time frames for changes to be made should a developer not fulfil everything required by the consent, is the right thing to do

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: Will the Under-Secretary give way?

Parmjit Dhanda: My neighbour, the hon. Member for Cotswold, has the habit of intervening just as I am about to sit down. I will let him do so once more.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am very grateful; the Minister has been generous. The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Rogerson) made a very good point. The enforcement powers are likely to be time consuming and will require a great deal of expertise from senior planning officers. Therefore, small authorities such as my ownthe Under-Secretary knows it welland, no doubt, in North Cornwall will be overstretched in dealing with enforcement issues. Will there be any mechanism whereby they can reclaim costs incurred in taking enforcement measures?

Parmjit Dhanda: I am not going to get into rewriting Finance Bills here and now in the Chamber. Local authorities, as well as benefiting from some of these big infrastructure projects, will want to play their part in inspecting them to make sure that those involved are adequately doing what is expected of them. The debate about how that will be resourced is for another day.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 C lause read a  Second  time , and added to the Bill.

Clause 134
	  
	Breach of terms of order granting development consent

Amendment made: No. 165, in page 68, line 25 , at end insert
	'(1A) Subsection (1) is subject to sections [Deemed consent under section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949](4) and [Deemed licences under Part 2 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985](4).'. [Mr. Dhanda]

Clause 135
	  
	Time Limits

Amendment made: No. 167, in page 68, line 32, leave out from '133' to end of line 5 on page 69 and insert 'or 134 after the end of
	(a) the relevant 4-year period, or
	(b) if subsection (3) applies, the extended period.
	(2) The relevant 4-year period means
	(a) in the case of an offence under section 133, the period of 4 years beginning with the date on which the development was substantially completed;
	(b) in the case of an offence under section 134, the period of 4 years beginning with the later of
	(i) the date on which the development was substantially completed, and
	(ii) the date on which the breach or failure to comply occurred.
	(3) This subsection applies if during the relevant 4-year period
	(a) an information notice has been served under section 140, or
	(b) an injunction has been applied for under section 144.
	(4) The extended period means the period of 4 years beginning with
	(a) the date of service of the information notice, if subsection (3)(a) applies;
	(b) the date of the application for the injunction, if subsection (3)(b) applies;
	(c) the later (or latest) of those dates, if both paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (3) apply.'. [Mr. Dhanda.]

Clause 136
	  
	Right to enter without warrant

Amendments made: No. 168, in page 69, line 8 , leave out 'if a' and insert
	'in relation to any land if the relevant'.
	No. 169, in page 69, line 10 , leave out 'any' and insert 'the'.
	No. 170, in page 69, line 11 , after 'the', insert 'relevant'. [Mr. Dhanda.]

Clause 137
	  
	Right to enter under warrant

Amendment made: No. 171, in page 69, line 29, leave out 'a' and insert 'the relevant'. [Mr. Dhanda.]

Clause 140
	  
	Power to require information

Amendments made: No. 172, in page 70, line 22, leave out 'If it appears to a' and insert
	'This section applies in relation to any land if it appears to the relevant'.
	No. 173, line 23, leave out 'any land, it' and insert 'the land.
	(1A) The relevant local planning authority'.
	No. 174, line 38, after 'the', insert 'relevant'. [Mr. Dhanda.]

Clause 142
	  
	Notice of unauthorised development

Amendments made: No. 175, in page 71, line 20, after '133', insert
	'committed on or in respect of any land'.
	No. 176, line 21, after 'The', insert 'relevant'.
	No. 177, line 28, after '134', insert
	'committed on or in respect of any land'.
	No. 178, line 29, after 'The', insert 'relevant'. [Mr. Dhanda.]

Clause 143
	  
	Execution of works required by notice of unauthorised development

Amendments made: No. 179, in page 72, line 3, after fourth 'the', insert 'relevant'.
	No. 180, line 14, after 'the', insert 'relevant'.
	No. 181, line 34 , leave out 'a' and insert 'the relevant'. [Mr. Dhanda.]

Clause 144
	  
	Injunctions

Amendment made: No. 182, in page 73, line 2 , after '134', insert
	'in relation to land in the area of the local planning authority'. [Mr. Dhanda.]

Clause 145
	  
	isles of scilly

Amendment made: No. 183, in page 73, line 9, after 'Scilly', insert
	'in relation to land in the Council's area'. [Mr. Dhanda.]

New Clause 14
	  
	Correction of errors in development consent decisions

'Schedule [ Correction of errors in development consent decisions] (correction of errors in development consent decisions) has effect.'. [Mr. Dhanda.]
	 Brought up, and read the First time.

Parmjit Dhanda: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 25  Changes to, and revocation of, orders granting development consent.
	Government amendments Nos. 113, 166 and 246.
	Government new schedule 2 Correction of errors in development consent decisions.
	Government new schedule 4 Changes to, and revocation of, orders granting development consent.

Parmjit Dhanda: These Government amendments, new clauses and new schedules cover a wide range of areas that we believe will be necessary to ensure that the single consents regime provides real benefits to promoters of nationally significant infrastructure projects and to the wider public. In particular, the amendments deal with how a development consent order could be modified at a later date, where changes prove necessary.
	Given the size and complexity of nationally significant infrastructure projects, it is almost inevitable that changes to the design of the project may need to be made as construction progresses. The single consents regime would be of little help to promoters, if it were not nimble or flexible enough to allow some changes to be made without forcing the whole project to start all over again from square one. The amendments set out two mechanisms for how this might be done in a manner that is both proportionate to the complexity of the changes and suitable for the task in hand.
	The first mechanism relates to the correction of a decision where there is a non-significant error, such as a typo in a decision documentthese things happen. The mechanism is intended solely for the correction of clerical errors in the documents. Under the procedure, the appropriate authority may make corrections where it finds that the decision documents do not properly reflect the decision that it reached. The procedures set out are intended to be speedy, while ensuring that all interested parties are notified of corrections the authority intends to make.
	There are consequential amendments that follow from the procedure, particularly amendment No. 113, which outlines that challenges to a decision to correct an error should be made through judicial review, as is the case with regard to all the other decisions made by the appropriate authority. Amendment No. 166 gives a defence against an offence under clause 134, where the offence was caused by an error that had been corrected. The second mechanism relates to how development consent orders could be subsequently modified or revoked, when the original decision documents accurately reflected the decision that was made.
	The categories of person who may apply for a revocation or modification of a development consent order are thus: the applicant or his successor in title, or otherwise the beneficiary of the development consent order; the relevant local planning authority, where the development contained in the order has been abandoned and has resulted in a reduced amenity of surrounding land; the appropriate authority, if it believes that the development consent order contains a significant error within it; and the Secretary of State, if he or she believes that if development were carried out in accordance with the order, it would contravene Community or human rights law.
	Where the IPC or Secretary of State applies for a revocation or modification, they may be liable to pay compensation to those who incurred loss because of the changes. New schedule 4 includes a power allowing the Secretary of State to prescribe further detail on the procedures by which applications for modification or revocation should be handled. We intend that the procedures for modification or revocation of an order will be more onerous, obviously, than for the correction of errors and may, depending on the complexity of the changes applied for, involve a full scale examination along the lines set out elsewhere in the Bill. Where the effects of a proposed modification could be significant, we believe that it is right that a detailed and thorough examination should be undertaken by the IPC, just as it would do for a new application for infrastructure.

David Jones: As we have heard from the Under-Secretary, these amendments provide a framework for the change of and revocation of orders granting development consent. The IPC, or the Secretary of State if they are the decision-maker, may make a change to a development consent order, if they are satisfied that the change is not material. As we have heard, the application for a change to the order may only be exercised on an application by the original applicant or his successor in title, a person with an interest in the land or any other person for whose benefit the development consent has effect. In the case of an application by someone with an interest in only part of the land, the order may be made in respect of so much of the original land as is affected by the order.
	The new schedule also contains a power for the appropriate authority to amend or revoke a development consent order, if that authority is satisfied that the order contains a significant error and it would not be appropriate for the error to be corrected by means of the power to which I have just referred. I would be grateful if the Minister could indicate the sort of circumstances in which it would not be appropriate for the error to be corrected by means of the exercise of that earlier power, because although the power may be exercised on an application made by the applicant or his successor in title, it may also be exercised, as we have heard, on an application by any other person with an interest in the land or
	any other person for whose benefit the development consent order has effect.
	Thus, this is potentially a draconian power, which could cause enormous loss to the applicant or to the promoter of the project.
	As far as I can tell, no provisions are contained in new schedule 4 for representations to be made by any person who may be aggrieved by the revocation of the order. It might be that those will be made pursuant to regulations that will be made when the Bill is enacted, but I would be grateful if the Minister were to confirm that in such a circumstance provisions would be made for representations to be made by a person who is aggrieved or who could be aggrieved by the making of such an order.
	The Secretary of State or the commission, whoever is the decision maker, may also change or revoke the order on its own motion if satisfied that the developments, if carried out, would contravene community law. The potentially draconian nature of the power is made clear in paragraph 5, which includes a power
	to require the removal or alteration of buildings
	or
	discontinuance of a use of land.
	We are talking about projects of major national infrastructure, so it is possible, and indeed likely, that the downsides of any revocation of such an order will be enormously expensive.
	Paragraph 6(5) provides that the Secretary of State may make regulations about
	the assessment of compensation payable under this paragraph.
	Paragraph 6(1)(c) provides that the loss or damage in question must be directly attributable to the change or revocation. Does that refer to pure economic loss, or would other sorts of losses be the subject of compensation? Furthermore, what of loss that is not directly attributable to the change or revocation? I assume from what the Minister has said that such indirect loss would not be the subject of compensation, but it may be difficult to ascertain whether a loss is directly or indirectly attributable. Will the regulations that are to be made make provisions that will be of assistance with regard to disputes that may arise in connection with determining whether a loss is, for the purposes of the Bill, to be regarded as direct or indirect?
	Given that that question is of such great significance, it is perhaps surprising that these provisions have only recently been introduced into the Bill. For the reasons that I have just outlined, I am by no means convinced that the procedure that has been set up is entirely watertight, and I look forward to the Minister's response to the points that I have raised.

Daniel Rogerson: In the debate on an earlier group of new clauses and amendments, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) referred to the ability of his constituents to sniff out conspiracy. The Minister is trying to persuade the House that these provisions relate more to cock-up than to conspiracy. As with all legislation, we must examine how they might be interpreted not only by those who are advancing the Bill, but by those who may have the opportunity to use the provisions at a future time. I therefore share the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) about whether or not the provisions are drafted tightly enough to ensure that whatever decisions the IPC takes on development consents cannot then be rewritten quite quickly, given that that might have far-reaching consequences for those involved.
	Given that I suspect that the number of applications that the IPC will have to deal with will grow beyond the annual number to which we have been told it will grow, and given that we have been discussing the increasing complexity of the things in which the IPC will have to become expert, this matter again highlights that there is a great deal of potential for all those sorts of mistakes to be made. I can see why the Government feel it necessary to introduce this provision, but it does not inspire a great deal of confidence in the whole process.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: It is hard to understand why the Planning Bill, having gone through all its procedures thus far, has had a hugely important new schedule incorporated into it at this late stage. The new schedule has far-reaching effects. I cannot think of another Bill containing provisions to correct errors in the way in which this one does. Normally, such significant changes or such significant powers would be available only to a court, but the IPC would be able to say to a promoter,  Sorry chaps, we got it wrong, and we will correct it now or, No, you have to go through the whole thing again. Under this new schedule, it would depend on a whim as to whether or not the IPC would require the promoter to go through the whole process again. The decision would be arbitrary, which is extraordinary.
	I would be grateful if the Minister could give us some indication of the Government's thinking as to how the provision came about. In what circumstances would he expect the IPC or the Secretary of State making the order to be able to modify that order, and to what scale would that be possible? How serious would the circumstances need to be for the order to be revoked altogether and for the poor old promoter, who would probably have spent many years and many thousands of poundsprobably hundreds of thousands of pounds, or perhaps even millions of poundson the project, to have to go through the whole process again. This very serious matter would normally, under other Acts of Parliament, be considered by the courts, so I am not sure why it is being delegated to the IPC or to the Secretary of State.

Elfyn Llwyd: I shall take a slightly different tack. I anticipate legal challenges regarding paragraph (1) to new schedule 2, which deals with the correction of errors in development consent decisions, in paragraph 2(1) to new schedule 4, which deals with changes to, and the revocation of, orders granting development and so on, and paragraph 3(1) to new schedule 4, which deals with changes to, and the revocation of, orders granting development consent. I cannot understand why the Government cannot find a means of making those corrections without having to put people to the expense of going to court. The last thing that I want is to do my learned friends out of jobs, but should the Bill say that it has to proceed all three cases by way of judicial review, which is a very expensive and often time-consuming process? Why could we not think of some other forum for correcting these cases?
	Let us consider the example of the Commons Registration Act 1965, under which a commission was set up. It was normally chaired by a lawyer; people could apply locally to have discussions of this kind determined once and for all; and matters would proceed to the High Court only if the commissioner had misdirected himself or herself or had in some way fallen foul of the 1965 Act. It was a less time-consuming and less expensive procedure, and something along those lines may well lend itself to this part of the Bill. I had not prepared anything on this part of the Bill until now, but I was struck by the fact that the Bill imposes a duty on an individual always to go for judicial review, which, as I have said, is onerous and expensive. Between now and when the Bill finishes its passage through Lords, perhaps the Government will consider another forum, as that might be cheaper, quicker and perhaps more accessible.

Parmjit Dhanda: The clock may be against us, so I shall write to hon. Members with assurances if I cannot answer their questions. In many respects, these are amendments of last resort. We do not want to see clerical mistakes, but when they occur it is right and proper that we have a system in place for changes to be made with a minimum of consequential problems, so that projects can be completed as quickly as possible
	 It being half past Seven o'clock, Madam Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order  [this day].
	 Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
	Madam Deputy Speaker  then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.

New Clause 25
	  
	Changes to, and revocation of, orders granting development consent

'Schedule [ Changes to, and revocation of, orders granting development consent] (changes to, and revocation of, orders granting development consent) has effect.'. [Mr. Dhanda.]
	 Brought up, read the First time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 108
	  
	Legal challenges relating to applications for orders granting development consent

Amendment made: No. 113, in page 55, line 23, at end insert
	'(3A) A court may entertain proceedings for questioning a decision under paragraph 1 of Schedule [Correction of errors in development consent decisions] in relation to an error or omission in a decision document only if
	(a) the proceedings are brought by a claim for judicial review, and
	(b) the claim form is filed during the period of 6 weeks beginning with the day on which a correction notice in respect of the error or omission is issued under paragraph 2 of that Schedule.
	(3B) A court may entertain proceedings for questioning a decision under paragraph 2(1) of Schedule [Changes to, and revocation of, orders granting development consent] to make a change to an order granting development consent only if
	(a) the proceedings are brought by a claim for judicial review, and
	(b) the claim form is filed during the period of 6 weeks beginning with the day on which notice of the change is given under paragraph 2(7)(b) of that Schedule.
	(3C) A court may entertain proceedings for questioning a decision under paragraph 3(1) of Schedule [Changes to, and revocation of, orders granting development consent] to make a change to, or revoke, an order granting development consent only if
	(a) the proceedings are brought by a claim for judicial review, and
	(b) the claim form is filed during the period of 6 weeks beginning with the day on which notice of the change or revocation is given under paragraph 4(5) of that Schedule.'. [Mr. Dhanda.]

Clause 134
	  
	Breach of terms of order granting development consent

Amendment made: No. 166, in page 68, line 25, at end insert
	'(1B) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that
	(a) the breach or failure to comply occurred only because of an error or omission in the order, and
	(b) a correction notice specifying the correction of the error or omission has been issued under paragraph 2 of Schedule [Correction of errors in development consent decisions].'. [Mr. Dhanda.]

Clause 190
	  
	Orders and regulations

Amendment made: No. 246, in page 116, line 40, at end insert
	'(aa) a power to make changes to, or revoke, an order granting development consent;'. [Mr. Dhanda.]

New Clause 8
	  
	Parliamentary requirements

'(1) This section sets out the parliamentary requirements referred to in sections 5(4) and 6(4).
	(2) The Secretary of State must lay the proposal before Parliament.
	(3) In this section the proposal means
	(a) the statement that the Secretary of State proposes to designate as a national policy statement for the purposes of this Act, or
	(b) (as the case may be) the proposed amendment.
	(4) Subsection (5) applies if, during the relevant period
	(a) either House of Parliament makes a resolution with regard to the proposal, or
	(b) a committee of the House of Commons makes recommendations with regard to the proposal.
	(5) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a statement setting out the Secretary of State's response to the resolution or recommendations.
	(6) The relevant period is the period specified by the Secretary of State in relation to the proposal.
	(7) The Secretary of State must specify the relevant period in relation to the proposal on or before the day on which the proposal is laid before Parliament under subsection (2).'. [John Healey.]
	 Brought up, and read the First time.

John Healey: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
	Amendment (a) to the proposed new clause, in subsection (2) at end insert
	'once the consultation and publicity requirements detailed in section 7 have been complied with'.
	New clause 1 Climate change 
	'(1) A statement may only be designated under section 5 if the Secretary of State is satisfied that (taken as a whole) the policies in the statement contribute to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.
	(2) A statement designated under section 5 must contain a statement to the effect that it is the Secretary of State's view that the requirement of subsection (1) is satisfied.'.
	Amendment No. 52, in clause 5, page 3, line 6, leave out 'and'.
	Amendment No. 53, page 3, line 8, at end insert ', and
	(c) has been approved by both Houses of Parliament.'.
	Government amendments Nos. 72 to 75.
	Amendment No. 3, in clause 7, page 4, line 27, at end insert
	'(4A) The Secretary of State must consult with such organisations as appear to the Secretary of State to be able to advise appropriately on the risks to health arising from the policy set out in the national policy statement.'.
	Amendment No. 54, in clause 9, page 5, line 16, at end insert
	', including the reduction of and adaptation to climate change'.
	Amendment No. 67, in page 5, line 32, leave out Clause 11.
	Government amendment No. 76
	Government new clause 35 Application to Parliament.
	Amendment No. 1, in clause 97, page 49, line 26, at end insert
	'(d) the desirability of contributing to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.'.
	Government amendments Nos. 184 and 185.

John Healey: A substantial amount of time was set aside in the programme motion for the discussion of this group of amendments, which deals with issues relating to national policy statements, Parliament and climate change. I shall set the scene for hon. Members, which I hope will be helpful, as the group covers a lot of ground.
	Government new clause 8 and consequential amendments Nos. 72 to 76 would provide for a parliamentary process for the scrutiny of new national policy statements. Amendment (a), tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts), would change the time sequence in new clause 8, and amendments Nos. 52 and 53 would require both Houses to approve national policy statements before they could be designated.
	Government new clause 35 applies this Bill to Parliament. New clause 1 and amendment No. 54 seek to add a duty on the Secretary of State to address climate change when designating or reviewing a national policy statement, and amendment No. 1 seeks to add a duty on the infrastructure planning commission to have regard to climate change. Amendment No. 3 would require consultation with organisations to seek advice on the risks to health arising from the policy in national policy statements, and amendment No. 67 would remove clause 11 and thereby the provision to designate pre-existing statements of policy as national policy statements. Finally, Government amendments Nos. 184 and 185 deal with the issue of blight in relation to national policy statements.
	National policy statements are an important innovation and the foundation of the proposed new system. The Secretary of State would produce national policy statements for strategic development of essential infrastructure investment to ensure that there was a clear, strong policy framework for decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects. They would help to ensure a national debate about, and conclusions on, the infrastructure that the country needs. They would provide the primary framework for the IPC's consideration of applications for individual projects for energy, transport, water, waste water or waste infrastructure. They would set the complete policy framework relevant to decision making, integrating all the important and relevant environmental, social and other aspects of policy.
	The commission would not be able to take decisions on a project unless there was a relevant national policy statement designated and in place. NPSs will be important, serious and significant documents. They will therefore undergo an appraisal of their sustainability, will be subject to public consultation and will be scrutinised by Parliament, to ensure that all elements of the policy are appropriate. The IPC will then base its consideration and decisions on the policy set out in the NPS, weighed against domestic and European law, and the possibility or evidence of any adverse impacts on local areas as a result of the application going ahead.
	The exact form of national policy statements would vary by sector. The Bill makes it clear that some existing policy statements could become, or serve as, the basis for national policy statements, but only if they meet the standards set out in the Bill for national policy statements. Those standards include a proper appraisal of sustainability, proper public consultation and proper parliamentary scrutiny.
	Government new clause 8 and consequential amendments are among the most significant amendments tabled on Report. They provide for a new system of parliamentary scrutiny of national policy statements, which we see as the cornerstone of our new system. When the Bill was first introduced, we made a commitment to ensuring a stronger role for Parliament. We encouraged the House to consider setting up a Select Committee as part of that process, and suggested that it might be drawn from the expertise of the four relevant departmental Committeesthe Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Committee, the Transport Committee, the Communities and Local Government Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. We suggested that it could scrutinise draft NPSs in parallel with public consultation. We undertook that a Secretary of State would consider the Committee's reports together with responses from the public consultation and would revise draft NPSs before designating them. In addition, if the Committee recommended that an NPS raised issues that should be debated by Parliament, we would make Government time available for such debate before the designation of an NPS.
	I recognise, of course, that it is ultimately for the House itself to decide what procedures are appropriate for each NPS. These procedures will need to respect the demands on the time of Members and the House. However, they will need three hallmarks to be successful. First, they will need to be sufficiently flexible to deal with both new NPSs and future amendments to existing NPSs. Secondly, they will need to be timely, without undue delay in establishing NPSs as the Government's strategic framework for nationally significant infrastructure. Thirdly, they will need to be proportionate to the issues raised. It is conceivable, for example, that a future amendment to an NPS may be relatively limited, and we therefore need a system that can respond to that.
	I have had constructive and detailed discussions with the Chairs of the four Committees that I mentioned, and I pay tribute to them. Their Clerks have also provided significant and valuable advice. I have also ensured that we have kept in touch with other Committees, such as the Welsh Affairs Committee, through the Liaison Committee, to explore the potential for a process that will meet the proper role of this House in subjecting these policy statements to sufficient scrutiny. We have had three meetings, helpfully hosted by the Leader of the House, that have taken us a long way towards finding an approach that is workable and effective. I am grateful to those involved and to the House authorities for the time, consideration and expertise that they have devoted to that process.
	Together with the Chairs of the Select Committees, we have developed a possible process for Committee examination of national policy statements. Examination would be by either one of the relevant existing departmental Select Committees or a single new Committee drawn from their membership and expertise. That decision would be a matter for the Select Committees, via the Liaison Committee, and not for Government. The Committee would examine the draft national policy statement, largely parallel to public consultation, but there would be a period after the closure of the public consultation in which the Committee could take into account any significant issues that had been raised during that consultation. The Government have undertaken to ensure that briefing and information on those issues is made available immediately to the Select Committees, so that that they can do that. The Committee would then report with recommendations to the Secretary of State

Peter Luff: The House.

John Healey: In fact, the Secretary of State would look to that report, which would formally be a report to the House, of course, and would make time available, if necessary, for debate, if the Committee recommended it.
	We propose that the Government would then consider what change was needed to the draft national policy statement in the light of the views expressed in this House and in the public consultation, and we would then revise the draft as appropriate and as necessary.

Clive Betts: The point that my hon. Friend is making relates to my amendment (a) to new clause 8, in which I suggest that parliamentary scrutiny should come after the period of public consultation. My hon. Friend is now apparently saying that there would be an overlap period, and that time would be available after public consultation when the appropriate Committee in the House would be allowed to consider the results of that consultation before concluding its report on the policy statement. Can he give us some idea of the likely time periods involved in the process? They might not be firmed up at present, but it would be useful to have some indication of his thinking at this stage.

John Healey: I have discussed with the Select Committee Chairswe have not formalised or finalised the proposalan overhang or continuation period of perhaps four to six weeks to enable the Select Committee to take any additional account that might be necessary of the significant issues raised during the public consultation in its inquiry into and examination and scrutiny of the Government's proposals.
	We considered the proposal for an entirely sequential process, but two factors determined our view that the other approach would be better. First, we did not want to extend the period in which the national policy statements would be put in place for any longer than was necessary. Secondly, as a Government we want to be able to make any substantial revisions that might be required to a national policy statement in the light of the views of the public and Parliament and of any assessment of the sustainability appraisal that might be required. In other words, we want to bring all the relevant matters, observations and views from Parliament and public consultation together in one revision, rather than having to revise the statement at least twice, as would be the case if we had an entirely sequential process. I hope that the further information that I have been able to share with the House and with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe may persuade him that amendment (a) is not necessary at this point, but that its aim can be achieved. The Select Committee Chairs are confident that it can be achieved, too.
	We also gave careful consideration to whether Parliament should be required or should have the opportunity formally to approve a national policy statement by a binding vote. The proposal is before us under the amendments tabled by the official Opposition, which propose a binding vote for both Houses to approve a national policy statement, although everyone, as far as I can tellincluding the Opposition and the Select Committee Chairswas talking about a non-amendable motion and therefore a vote to approve or not to approve the policy statement. Amendments Nos. 52 and 53 would have that effect by amending clause 5, which would mean that the Secretary of State could designate a national policy statement only if it had been approved by both Houses.

Peter Luff: Although I am personally sorry that Parliament has not been given the chance to vote on the national policy statements, I am very grateful to the Minister and the Leader of the House for the sympathetic way in which they treated the Select Committees' concerns. New clause 8 certainly represents a great step forward, which we welcome, although we would like the vote on national policy statements.
	May I ask the Minister one specific question of some importance? Am I right to believe that new clause 35 is simply intended to apply planning law to Parliament and is not intended to set aside article 9 of the Bill of Rights or to allow the courts to evaluate the Select Committee reports or resolutions of the House provided for in new clause 8? Those are very important matters for the privilege of this House.

John Healey: The hon. Gentleman is right. That new clause has nothing to do with parliamentary procedure, the scrutiny of national policy statements or constitutional matters. It simply deals with the situation in which a potentially nationally significant infrastructure project might relate to parliamentary land. It is akin to the provisions in the Bill for Crown land. Next Monday, we are set to discuss those provisions, including the safeguards that will be in place. It might be better to pick up the matter at that point. I can give the hon. Gentleman the reassurance that he has requested.
	Let me return to whether there is a case for national policy statements to be approved by both Houses. In the end, we took the view that although national policy statements were important documents that would form the basis of decisions by the new infrastructure planning commission, they are ultimately documents that set out the Government's policy. They are not primary or secondary legislation. It is generally the case in this House that Government decide policy and Parliament scrutinises it as appropriate.
	Given that the policy statements are policy documents, they are closer to planning policy statements or super-White Papers, which are not subject to parliamentary approval, than to legislation, which is. I have to say to the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait), who will try to make the case for amendments Nos. 52 and 53, that I do not see a ready-made model or suitable precedent for a binding vote on such statements of policy. Unlike with legislation, we could be taken into unprecedented and problematic territory if the two Houses were to take a different view of the policy that might be contained in a national policy statement.

Elfyn Llwyd: I am listening carefully to the Minister, and want just to put one point to him. The policy, as he refers to it, is obviously created by Government. It then becomes, I suppose, planning policy guidance, which is not legislation but has the force of law and is as far-reaching as any piece of legislation that we could devise in this place. Planning policy guidance decides whether a planning development goes forward or not, with all the consequences of either decision. Although he is saying that they should not come before Parliament, my point is that the policy statements are very far-reaching indeed.

John Healey: The hon. Gentleman is right, and that is precisely why we propose the new system in the Bill for the proper scrutiny of such national policy statements. However, they are policy statements, not legislation. Although they may be more akin to planning policy statements, we are proposing a formal system that is rooted in the House and assured in a way that we do not currently have for planning policy statements.
	Let me spell out the provisions. The new clause will require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a draft national policy statement or an amendment of a policy statement and, subsequently, to lay before Parliament a statement that sets out the Government's response to any resolution of either House or any recommendation of the Committee of the House of Commons about the proposals in the national policy statement, and to do so within a relevant period. It will require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament the final national policy statement.
	The new clause recognises the interest of both Houses in such issues. It will formalise both the Secretary of State's relationship with both Houses and the Secretary of State's response to them. However, it also specifically recognises the nature and expertise of the departmental Select Committees in this House, rather than the other place.
	Government amendments Nos. 72 and 76 will make consequential changes. They specify that a new national policy statement that has been reviewed or amended cannot be designated unless the parliamentary requirements set out in the Bill have been met and that the final national policy statement or amended NPS must be laid before Parliament.
	Government amendment No. 76 will amend clause 11, which deals with the designation of policy statements made before the commencement of the Act, and clarifies that when deciding whether to designate a policy statement as an NPS, the Secretary of State can take account of the parliamentary scrutiny that was previously undertaken in relation to the statement to determine whether it meets the standards laid down by the Act.
	Before hon. Members, including some of my hon. Friends, see a conspiracy, let me say that, essentially, the pre-commencement provision is principally designed to deal with a situation in which a Secretary of State might want to get on with the process of publishing a draft national policy statement, perhaps on renewal energy, in advance of the formal commencement of the Act. As I have made clear before, any national policy statement could be designated only if the specific requirements for the appraisal of sustainability, for the public consultation and for parliamentary scrutiny were all fully met. However, the provision could allow the process to start before the formal commencement of the Act.

John McDonnell: The practical example that Ministers gave when we debated this matter in January was the aviation White Paper being converted into a national policy statement. Will the Minister clarify whether in his view the process by which the aviation White Paper was developed and the subsequent period that has elapsed mean that it would meet the requirements of the legislation to be converted into a national policy statement?

John Healey: My hon. Friend's concern about the aviation White Paper fits into a different category. The White Paper went through consultation in 2003. If that were to be the basis of a national policy statement in the future, that potential NPS would have to meet the three criteria that we have set out in the Bill and that I have explained to the House today. The appropriate time at which that may be considered is likely to be some time between 2009 and 2011, when we have undertaken to review the aviation White Paper. However, unless and until there is a national policy statement on aviation, the operation of the IPC in relation to any application for significant airport development that meets the thresholds in the Bill could not come into play. I hope that that helps to reassure my hon. Friend and that it underlines the fact that the pre-commencement provisions relate principally to the situation that I described earlier, rather than to his concern about the aviation White Paper or indeed, arguably, to the consideration of something like the waste strategy, which has been published already and could conceivably become the basis of a national policy statement on waste.

John McDonnell: I am sorry to press the Minister for absolute clarity. In his response, does he mean that any development that involves aviation expansion could not be considered by the IPC on the basis of the aviation White Paper but would have to wait until the national policy statement was developed, or is he saying that the IPC could consider any expansion proposal on the basis of the aviation White Paper because no NPS is in place?

John Healey: No, the IPC could consider an application for a major development in the aviation field only if a national policy statement was in place. Unless and until an aviation national policy statement is in place, the IPC could not operate under the terms of the new system.

John McDonnell: I am sorry to press the Minister again. I therefore return to the original question: does the process by which the aviation White Paper was arrived at satisfy the requirements set out in the Bill for its immediate conversion into a national policy statement?

John Healey: That would have to be a judgment that was taken, but we are setting out in the Bill three very clear conditions, including on parliamentary scrutiny, which has not been in place before. That may therefore imply an answer to my hon. Friend's question. Any view of making the aviation White Paper the basis of a national policy statement on aviation would mean that that proposed national policy statement would have to be produced and undergo the parliamentary scrutiny process, which we have set out and which I have explained, as well as the processes for public consultation and for a tough appraisal of its sustainability. Only if it meets the criteria in those three respects could it then become designated as a national policy statement.

John McDonnell: rose

John Healey: My hon. Friend has had three goes. There are a number of other issues, and number of other hon. Members are keen to make their own points in the debate, but I will give way one more time.

John McDonnell: I just want to make this explicit: the aviation White Paper did not come with a sustainability appraisal or parliamentary scrutiny. Therefore, it could not be converted into a national policy statement and the IPC could not consider an application for aviation expansion on that basis.

John Healey: My hon. Friend draws his very clear conclusions from the very clear explanation that I have set out for the House.

Peter Luff: I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way yet again, and I genuinely intend to be helpful. Surely, any such restatement of the White Paper as a national policy statement would require the full process of scrutiny, so there is not a real issue.

John Healey: In a rather shorter way, the hon. Gentleman says exactly what I was trying to say.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: The Minister has made it quite clear that the IPC cannot operate in the absence of a policy statement on a submission or application. Will he therefore say when he thinks that the first of those policy statements will be rolled out, bearing in mind that the Select Committees involved will have a considerable amount of work to do, because the first scrutiny is likely to be the most time-consuming? When are the first national policy statements likely to be rolled out, and when will the IPC be in a position to operate?

John Healey: I would expect the first draft national policy statements to be produced and proposed by Secretaries of State this year. It is therefore necessary to put in place the pre-commencement provisions that I have mentioned.
	In case my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) feels that I have not gone the whole hog, let me explain that my job as the midhusband of the Bill is to produce a new system for dealing with large planning projects. That system will be based on new national policy statements. I have explained the criteria that must be met, and the processes that have to be undergone, for national policy statements to be put in place.
	In the end, it is not for me to judge or decide whether a policy paper has undergone those processes; that is the responsibility and a matter for the judgment of the relevant Secretary of State, and they will have to explain the view that they take. If, in their judgment, there has not been the sustainability appraisal, parliamentary scrutiny or public consultation that national policy statements require under the Bill, it is their responsibility to put in place measures to ensure that that is changed. If no national policy statement is formally designated and in place, the IPC cannot decide on a major application. It could examine the application, but it would be for the Secretary of State to make the decisions on the application, as is the case now. I hope that my hon. Friend is satisfied with that; I have to say that I do not feel that I can go much further on that point.
	Together, the new clause and the amendments in the group fulfil our commitment to provide for parliamentary scrutiny. They take the significant step of setting that out in legislation. That was done with the encouragement of the Select Committee Chairmen, who were keen for us to do it. I hope that the House will agree that the provisions set out significant, innovative arrangements for parliamentary scrutiny, and ensure that Parliament has a strong say, and a strong influence, on any future national policy statement. I hope that at the end of the debate, in light of what has been said, the hon. Member for Beckenham will not feel it necessary to press her amendments to a Division.
	I shall now speak rather more briefly, because I recognise the level of the House's interest in the issues covered by this group of amendments. Through amendments Nos. 184 and 185, we have introduced provisions to deal with the blight that could be produced by a national policy statement, a proposed major project application or an order granting authorisation for compulsory purchase. Those are important provisions that give protection to people who may be affected.
	New clause 1 and amendment No. 54 seek to give the Secretary of State a specific duty to consider climate change when designating or reviewing national policy statements. Amendment No. 1 would add climate change as a factor in the decision-making framework for the IPC, which makes the decisions. I hope that Members recognise that since the publication of the Bill, there has been development of the position set out in the White Paper.
	Our objectives in relation to sustainable development are central to the consideration of future infrastructure needs. That is clearly sensible and necessary for the future of the country, whatever the infrastructure that we are talking about. That is why the Bill includes a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that national policy statements are drawn up with the objective of contributing to sustainable development. That is why national policy statements will have to be consistent with all relevant European Union law, including the habitats directive, and domestic law, including the Climate Change Bill, which will place tough duties on the Government to tackle the issues of climate change. That is why, before designating a national policy statement, Ministers must carry out an appraisal of their sustainability. The process will also apply to revisions of national policy statements, where the policy is materially affected.
	Where the EU strategic environmental assessment directive applies, we will carry out an appraisal of sustainability that will cover all the obligations in the directive, but that directive may not apply to some national policy statements, so it is necessary to have a strong assessment framework that will apply to all statements to ensure that environmental objectives in particular, and also social and economic objectives, are properly factored into the development. That is the principle, purpose and thinking behind our approach.
	The planning White Paper included a policy commitment to consider climate change when national policy statements are being developed, and we have delivered on that by requiring an appraisal of sustainability for every national policy statement, in which climate change will be considered. The new regime will also be subject to the provisions of the Climate Change Bill, when they are finally settled and put into statute. That Bill imposes a general duty on Ministers to meet carbon budgets, and to publish proposals and policies for meeting them. The Climate Change Bill will put strong measures in place, and strong duties on Government, to tackle climate change, and I would therefore argue that it is not appropriate or necessary to place a specific duty of that sort on the Secretary of State in the Bill, particularly not before the Climate Change Bill's provisions are made clear and passed by the House.
	On amendment No. 1, as I have said, the issue of climate change is dealt with in the requirement to prepare an appraisal of sustainability for national policy statements. That appraisal will be published alongside a draft national policy statement. That will be part of the public consultation that any national policy statement will have to undergo, and part of the parliamentary scrutiny of the statement.
	The effect of requiring the IPC to make judgments on the issue of climate change will be to increase the scope of its discretion, but it would be more appropriate for the issue to be dealt with thoroughly by the Secretary of State, with consultation in public and scrutiny in Parliament, when preparing and designating the national policy statement. Requiring the IPC to give a view on a specific issue is likely to introduce additional uncertainty into the process, and it could slow down the decision-making process. It is inconsistent with the approach that we are trying to take in the new system.
	I hope that I have set out the thinking behind the significant Government amendments and new clauses, and that I have been able to explain our approach on some of the issues on which hon. Friends and Opposition Members have tabled amendments. I look forward to the rest of the debate.

Jacqui Lait: I am grateful to the Minister for being so clear on all the amendments tabled by the Government, by Labour Back Benchers and by the Opposition parties. As he said, national policy statements are one of the core aspects of the Bill. In principle, the official Opposition have no difficulty with the policy on national policy statements. We think it is a positive way forward to try to deal with the crumbling infrastructure that we will probably face when we get into government, and we will get on with it a lot more quickly than the present Government have.
	There is agreement across the House that we never want to see again lengthy planning inquiries such as Sizewell and terminal 5examples that have been given throughout our discussion of the Bill. That is a given. The difficulty arises from the status of national policy statements. The Minister clearly said that he saw them as Government statements. He agreed that they were the equivalent of planning policy guidance. We see them as being so important that they need to be voted on substantively by the House.
	That is crucial, because the British public believe in the primacy of Parliament. If Parliament has agreed to a policy, there will be fewer challenges in principle as the statements come into use. The problem with national policy statements being Government statements is that that opens the possibility of extensive judicial review, based on all aspects of the policy statements. Hence, the objective on which we are all agreedthe speeding up decisions on infrastructurewill be frustrated by continual judicial review. That is the core reason why we tabled amendments Nos. 53 and 52 and why I will press them to a Division, if that is appropriate, in due course.

Clive Betts: I can sympathise with the argument that the House should have a vote on policy statements, but is the hon. Lady really committing a future Conservative Government to giving a veto to a second Chamber, in whatever form it is comprised in due course, over the policy statements that that Government will issue?

Jacqui Lait: I was about to move on to the text of our amendment. I am happy to accept, as the Minister pointed out, that the proposal would be a new and unique way forward, and I was about to congratulate him on the work that he and our Select Committee Chairman have done in developing a form of consideration of national policy statements that meets the Government's criteria. That suggests to me that it is not beyond the ability and skills in the House to create a formula for national policy statements to get full parliamentary approval.
	I am happy to admit that our amendment is not as detailed as the hon. Gentleman or the Minister might like, but the key for us is the principle that Parliament should own policy statements. That is the difference between us on the issue, and it is the reason I was less than complimentary about the programme motion. As a result of that, we have less time to deal with one of the more important issues than we had to deal with aspects that were important but uncontroversial.
	I would be grateful if the Minister gave us more answers on new clause 8. Although he set out clearly how he envisages it working and the agreement that has been reached so far with various bodies in the House, I am more than a little confused by new clause 8. We have had contradictory statements about how policy statements should be dealt with. Members who have taken an interest in the Bill will remember that the Secretary of State said on Second Reading on 10 December:
	If Parliament were to want to vote on those issues, that will be the right and proper course to take.[ Official Report, 10 December 2007; Vol. 469, c. 30.]
	That is clear and it seems to chime with what we are suggesting. However, in the evidence sessions the Minister spoke mainly about scrutiny. On 10 January, in the first evidence-giving session, he said that
	that Select Committee, or the arrangements that Parliament puts in place, will have the scope, as closely as they wish and in the manner that they wish, to scrutinise and comment on the proposals, and we will then take them into consideration. [Official Report, Planning Public Bill Committee, 10 January 2008; c. 138.]
	We had similar statements from him when we were debating clause 5 in Committee. He said that
	the Government will consider any reports or observations that such a Committee or such scrutiny provides together with the responses. [Official Report, Planning Public Bill Committee, 17 January 2008; c. 251.]
	There is a contradiction between what the Secretary of State said on Second Reading and what the Minister said in Committee. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) may well remember that when he moved an amendment in Committee very similar to the one that we had tabled, he withdrew it and I immediately took it up, because it conveyed the difficulty that we had. I congratulate him on his close and honourable interest in the Bill. We look forward to the debate next Monday.
	New clause 8 refers to the situation where
	either House of Parliament makes a resolution with regard to the proposal.
	I have not been in the House as long as some Members, but I have been here for 15 or 16 years. To me, a resolution is not a very clear statement. A resolution implies a vote, but does that mean a resolution by a Select Committee, by the Chamber, or by the Quadripartite Select Committee? What precisely does a resolution mean in new clause 8? I would be grateful if the Minister clarified that.
	The Minister was clear about the form that he is now proposing for consultation. Those who sat through the Committee will remember that we could not establish whether the consultation would take place in parallel or in sequence. The Minister seems to have agreed to a system comprising a little of both. We can have a debate in Government timebut will it be in Westminster Hall, in Select Committee or on the Floor of the House? Will it be a topical debate? What sort of debate will it be? Will it be on the Adjournment, in which case it will provide us with nothing more than the opportunity to make known our points of view, which the Government may or may not take into account? That would mean that Parliament did not own the statement; in my view, however, that is the crucial thing.
	I have explained the principle behind my amendment. I am happy to admit that it is not perfect in any way, shape or form. However, I am sure that, with good will, we can work out how to address the issue properly.
	I accept that it will be difficult to get a national policy statement through the House. It will be difficult to get it through as a Government statement; it could be difficult to get through Parliament. However, if the British public do not feel that they own those statementsthe planning policies that will affect their liveswe will find it more difficult, take a longer time and spend more money in the courts trying to establish the infrastructure that we all agree we desperately need.
	I suspect that one of the reasons the Government have set their hearts against the national policy statements being statements of Parliament is that that would immediately blow out of the water their argument about the Secretary of State's conflict of interest when it comes to the infrastructure planning commission, which is the basis of the statements' creation. I shall not go down the route of debating that commission, but I have given what I think is one of the reasons why the Government are so desperate to keep the national policy statements as Government statements.
	We have also tabled an amendment on what I took to mean the aviation White Paper. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and others who have got further than the rest of us in getting clarification on the precise statement in respect of that White Paper. We had that debate in Committee. The status of the aviation policy was not entirely set out in black and white. I will look carefully tomorrow at what the Minister has said, but at this stage I think that we are as close as we will ever get to a statement that the current aviation White Paper will not be regarded as a national planning statement. If I have made a mistake, I apologise. I am sure that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington will be the first at the starting gate to ensure that the White Paper meets the criteria.
	Some of the national policy statements may be site-specific, hence there will be blight. It is a step forward that compensation should be paid to people affected by the statements. We need a bit more detail, but we are unlikely to get that at this stage; perhaps the other House will be more able to tease out how the system will work.
	I tabled our amendments on climate change to ensure that the issue was debated; I also welcome the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). Again, we had the debate in Committee; the hon. Gentleman may have read the report. I am happy to admit that the use of the phrase sustainable development encompasses climate change. However, I tabled the amendments because there is still so much concern that climate change should be included specifically in the Bill that I thought it sensible to explore further what sustainable development encompasses in total, and to get assurances from the Minister that climate change was definitely part of it. I will listen with interest to the rest of the debate on the subject, but I am minded not to press the issue because the Minister clearly stated that climate change was included. Their lordships may wish to look at the issue in greater detail, and we would be happy to return to it.
	The nub of our objection, as I have saidI will not go on about it at great length againis that the national policy statement should be a parliamentary, not a Government, statement. That is why I tabled amendments suggesting that it should be approved by both Houses. On that basis, I will press those amendments in due course.

David Drew: I want to discuss new clause 1 and amendment No. 1, which stand in my name and those of my hon. Friends and other hon. Members. To continue where the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) left off, it is important that we have this debate, because if we are changing the planning system at this time, we must recognise that climate change is in every part of our life from now on. Given that planning has a huge impact on our future as well as our present, it is somewhat strange that the Government are nervous about bringing forward a duty not only on the Secretary of State but on the IPC, which may have a more indirect impact but could in many respects be more important as regards how it sets the precedent for major developments. If the Government fail in any way to take account of climate change there will be, at best, a lost opportunity.
	I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for the time that he has spent with us. I hope that it has been an interesting discourse. We have learned some things on our side of the argument, and I hope that he has learned some things on his side. This is not a debate that sits in isolation. Given that this Government have pushed the boat out in more ways than one with the Climate Change Bill, the Energy Bill and the forthcoming marine Bill, it is disappointing to fall at the last hurdle when some of us wish to push things to a point whereby everybody is clear that the Secretary of State and the IPC, whoever those people may be in future, have an obligation on them to have due regard to climate change. It is even stranger that what central Government are abdicating from is expected from local government. In the local development frameworks, it is writ large that local authorities must have every regard to climate change in terms of how they progress their planning policies.

Elfyn Llwyd: I agree with the hon. Gentleman and further reinforce his argument by saying that the Government of Wales Act 2006 placed a duty on the National Assembly for Wales to act in accordance with the principles of sustainable development. If it was good enough for that Bill, it should be good enough for this one.

David Drew: That is an excellent point that is very helpful to my argument. If it is good enough for Wales, it is good enough for England and for our planning policies.
	This is not just about joined-up government, with different bits of legislation that need to interact, but joined-up action. If we seriously expect the general public to treat climate change as the overwhelming issue of our time, not writing it into national policy statements across the board seems to be a strange way to go about things. At best, it is a lost opportunity. The Minister put his arguments in such a mellifluous way that some of us could be tempted by them. There was charm and certainly a degree of cleverness in the way in which he induced support that may not have initially been there in relation to other aspects of the Bill.
	My problem, which I suspect is shared by those who signed up to new clause 1 and amendment No. 1, is that matters change and people move on. It could be implied that something lies behind the words, in the underlying spirit of the legislation, but when it is taken up in the light of day, people forget about such things. They say, Well, it wasn't quite like that. If you read the Minister's response to the debate, you find that he didn't necessarily say that climate change should be the overwhelming issue that underwrites all of the national policy statements.

Paul Truswell: Does my hon. Friend share my concern that while it is obviously appropriate for national policy statements to address climate change, when it comes to the crunch in the individual application, the detail cannot possibly be encompassed in anything as broad as such a statement? The matter must be addressed by the IPC in the robust way suggested by my hon. Friend. The only way to ensure that that happens is to give the IPC responsibility to do so.

David Drew: I agree with that, and I shall deal with amendment No. 1 in a bit more detail in a moment. My hon. Friend is at the crux of subsection (2) of the new clause. Obviously, one change is consequent on the other, but they could have been dealt with as we have debated the changes to the Bill.
	I want to pose a particular dilemma. I like the terminology sustainable development. I was partly responsible for the private Member's Bill that the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) introduced, and we had a lot of debates on what we mean by sustainable development. We might think that the term must include climate change, but there is a danger if climate change is not categorically referred to in the Bill. There is always some clever lawyer somewhere who can define sustainable development as not necessarily having to take due account of climate change. That is why some of us feel strongly that such wording should be in the Bill, that there should be a duty placed on the Secretary of State, and subsequently, that the IPC should pay absolute regard to it. That is why we have tabled this new clause and the amendment.
	Subsection (2) of the new clause relates to the IPC. In a sense, the matter is consequent on the duty placed on the Secretary of State, because it is sensible that an organisation that is subsidiary to the Secretary of State would also have such a duty placed on it. It is important that we set the context in which that body operates. The IPC may have a degree of scrutiny and accountability to this place through the Secretary of State, but the people chosen to work for it should be independent individuals. If they were all hired guns, who can pretend that the process will be anything other than the Government pushing through whatever they want? There will have to be a system of checks and balances with regard to who serves on the IPC and who deals with particular inquiries. If the body is independent, we must consider the extent to which it is accountable with regard to the way in which climate change is handled. In order to make that process easier, we must make climate change one of its key responsibilities when it carries out its duties, which would help rather than hinder it.
	I understand what my hon. Friend the Minister was arguing earlierat least I think I understand what he was arguing. However, I am not sure that he completely answered the point by categorically stating that there should be duty on the Secretary of State and the IPC to give legitimacy to the process. We want to ensure not only that climate change is writ large in the national policy statements, but that anything worked through as a result of those statements, particularly if it involves the IPC, should be entirely subject to climate change.
	That would draw together those three great pieces of legislation, which are historic and which the Government should be proud of passing. However, it seems somewhat strange that the mechanism for pushing through those changes, which could change all our lifestyles, is not quite there. That mechanism is not mentioned categorically, but is entirely dependent upon Ministers, albeit to some extent working with this place and the other place. However, we all know that that is subject to all manner of vagaries. If such a mechanism is not mentioned categorically, some of us fear that the climate change agenda will be diluted and perhaps even forgotten.
	That is why I have tabled new clause 1 and the amendments standing in my name. I heard what the hon. Member for Beckenham has said. The Opposition must make their mind up. They have tabled their amendmentswe thought that ours were slightly betterbut we do not believe that we have a monopoly on wisdom. There has been, I hope, a meeting of minds, because we are trying to get the Bill right. Some of us have been working extensively with non-governmental organisations, which are completely nonplussed by the Government, who, in other ways, have moved extensively and been helpful. Something that could be in place for a decade or longer must be got right.
	On the aspect that we are discussing, there is, dare I say, not only no meeting of minds, but questions about why the Government are not prepared to do what we think is the right thingto state categorically that there should be a duty on the Secretary of State and the IPC to have regard to climate change.

Daniel Rogerson: The debate on this group of amendments is the main event this evening. Three elements have emerged from the discussion so far, and I suppose that I, too, should refer to them.
	First, we had an interesting exchange about the aviation White Paper and the designation of national policy statements. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) has said that she was encouraged by what the Minister said about the conclusion of his debate with the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). However, my recollection is that the Minister said that the matter would be one for the relevant Secretary of State. I do not find that wholly reassuring, because there will be many pressures on the Government, as we all know, to deliver all sorts of things, particularly on aviation.
	I hoped that the prompting of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington about the different nature of the White Paper and how it relates to what a national policy statement is designed to be would mean that it could not be considered. The Minister was clear that there are criteria by which the Secretary of State must examine a White Paper or any existing guidelines, to determine whether it could function realistically as a national policy statement. That is a huge responsibility to place on the Secretary of State's shoulders, when all the other national policy statements may be considered by another process. I am therefore a little concerned that we are not quite at the stage of being reassured on that point.

Lembit �pik: I apologise to the House for joining the debate late, but Virgin Trains has once again done its utmost to prevent me from being here on time.
	The climate change issue is so important that even people such as me, who are quite supportive of aviation, believe that aviation and shipping should be included in measures in this Bill and targets on climate change as a whole. Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a concert in the Science museum tomorrow, with me and other MPs, to raise awareness about the Big Ask environmental campaign to try to get shipping and aviation included in the Government's targets?

Daniel Rogerson: I must say that I was unaware of that concert, but the whole House and others, through  Hansard and broadcast media, are now aware of it. I am sure that that will help to promote my hon. Friend's cause. His support of the aviation industry is renowned at a time when it is somewhat discouraging for people to get involved in aviation, especially for him given his past encounters with the ground.
	Returning to the requirement for parliamentary scrutiny of national policy statements, I am delighted that we have had some reassurance from the Chairman of one of the relevant Select Committees that the concerns that he and his colleagues have been raising have been taken on board by the Government, and that the process is moving forward in a consensual and considered way.
	The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Beckenham set matters out much more clearly, and would make it well understood that the vital regulations that we have been discussing would receive assent through votes in this House or another place. We debated this matter in Committee, and the Minister clearly separated issues of setting policy, and the need for democratic accountability in that regard, from the decision-making function, to which we return in debates on the IPC. I am concerned that if the democratic oversight and scrutiny of national policy statements is not watertight and evident in a way in which people can appreciate, it will, as the hon. Lady has said, lead people to lose all faith in the whole system.
	If decisions are not taken either by a democratically elected local authority or by a Secretary of State who is answerable to the House, but by an unelected quango, at least the policies that it uses to take decisions will be scrutinised very fully and will ultimately have been voted on by the House. I am not, therefore, entirely reassured by the Minister's comments, and I hope that the process that is evolving for scrutiny will prove to be satisfactory, but new clause 8 will not necessarily ensure that that is the case. As I understand it, either a resolution may be passed by either House
	or...a committee of the House of Commons makes recommendations with regard to the proposal.
	That or is the problem. We would welcome the in-depth scrutiny of a Select Committee with expertise on the relevant national policy statement, but I hope that other hon. Members would then have the chance to have their say.
	The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) has tabled an amendment to new clause 8. He, quite sensibly, seeks to ensure that all the measures in the Bill that apply to consultation and publicity will be enforced in this regard as well. That is an important provision, and he is right to raise that issue.
	I want to discuss whether the Bill, either in its current form or when it has been amended, will be sufficiently explicit on the need to mitigate climate change and to consider adaptations to it. The amendment that was tabled by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), which he discussed in a fair and helpful way, is far clearer on what we hope that national policy statements will have regard to, and on what the IPC will have regard to when taking decisions on individual applications. The Minister has said that he was wary of giving one issue more weight than all the others in regard to any decisions that the IPC would have to make. However, other hon. Members have already pointed out that, if there is to be an overarching issue, this is the one. I must admit that I, too, am somewhat surprised that the Government are being particularly resistant to this provision.
	Sustainable development covers a whole load of very positive things. As a rural MP, I interpret the sustainability of the rural economy as being at the heart of sustainable development. A major project that would bring jobs to the area could be said to be making it sustainable in the long term, in that it would be doing something for the sustainability of the area, even if it did not necessarily have regard to climate change above all else.
	New clause 1, which has been tabled by the hon. Member for Stroud and to which I have added my name, would work in tandem with amendment No. 1 in placing climate change at the top of the agenda when a national policy statement is set. The subject would also be on the agenda when the statement came to be interpreted by the commission. Those safeguards would ensure that we had a policy that made a lot more sense and that showed that Members of Parliament were as serious about tackling climate change as we like to suggest. I hope that the Government will listen to these arguments, but if the hon. Gentleman seeks to press the new clause to a vote, as he said that he will, I shall certainly encourage my hon. Friends to support him.

Clive Betts: I shall confine my comments to the importance of national policy statements, and to how the House is involved in their scrutiny and whether there should be a vote in Parliament to approve them. It is clear from all our debates on the matter that the national policy statements are almost the basis for this legislation. They are absolutely key, and they have support, in principle, across the House.
	When an individual planning application is made, a basis of policy should already have been determined by which the application can be judged. That is right in principle; it is also right in terms of process. Clearly, one of the problems with the present system is that each individual planning application involves not only a decision on whether the location in question is the most appropriate for the development, but a debate on whether the development is right per se in regard to policy on transport, or on power and energy, for example. We need to find a better way of determining the policy and considering applications in the light of that policy, so as to shorten the process and ensure that the applications are dealt with more expeditiously, while still being given full consideration.
	The way in which policy statements are formulated is absolutely key. In Committee, I think that we were all in a bit of a haze as to how the scrutiny would take place. The Minister was unable to be as clear as he has been today, for obvious reasons. The House is quite rightly jealous of its own methods and procedures for scrutinising anything that the Government propose. It was therefore right that the Minister did not try to commit himself absolutely, although he did give an indication that he would try to reach an agreement on the proper process of scrutiny by the House and on how that would fit in with the overall process of Government scrutiny and consultation on policy statements.
	It was interesting to hear the Chairman of the Select Committee on Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff), speaking today to my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government. There have been fruitful discussions between the Minister and those Committee Chairmen, who are now generally reassured that the Select Committees will be able to do their job of properly scrutinising the policy statements, and that they will be given adequate time in which to do it.
	My amendment (a) to new clause 8 is an attempt to flesh out precisely how that process will work. It also sets out what I would not want to see happeningnamely, a situation in which public scrutiny was taking place in parallel with the Select Committee scrutiny, and in which Ministers, faced with potentially contradictory views, could play one off against the other. It is entirely reasonableI described it as an end-on-end processfor the public scrutiny and public consultation to come first. Then, the Select Committee would have an opportunity to scrutinise the Government proposals, but in the light of what the public had to say.
	I accept that what my hon. Friend the Minister has done, in consultation with the Select Committee Chairmen, is reach a compromise. The process will set off and there will be consultation with the public and scrutiny in the House, but then there will be a gap after the public consultation has finished. The results of the consultation can be fed into the Select Committee, which can then take account of them before reaching its final view. That seems to be a reasonable compromise.
	I am sure that if, in the end, the four to six weeks do not appear to be satisfactory or enough time in practice, Select Committees will not be slow in coming forward to say to Ministers, We will need a bit longer on future occasions. It does not really work. There has been a genuine attempt to work through the interaction between the Government process of consultation and scrutiny and the procedures of the House. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he is trying to achieve, and what he has achieved, according to what I have heard from two Select Committee Chairmen.
	We then come to the issue of whether what the House does should be more than scrutiny and whether we should be allowed a vote on all the policy statements. We had that debate in Committee and the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) has already reminded me of proposals that I may have moved, if not pushed to the vote. Instinctively, any hon. Member would want the House to play as big a role as possible and to have greater opportunity to hold the Government to account, as well as ultimately to say through a vote whether it approves of a policy statement. Those are incredibly important documents and we should not undervalue them.
	There are, however, two real problems. In an intervention, I asked the hon. Lady whether she was really saying that a Conservative Government, if we ever have one, would give up to an unelected second Chamber the right to decide whether their policy statements went through. Would the Conservatives give an unelected second Chamber a right of veto? She can say so today because she is in opposition, but if she ever occupies a seat on the Treasury Bench she will probably come to a slightly different view. Governments tend to do that, do they not? Once people get into power, they do not much like the idea of giving in to a body that is unaccountable.
	That brings me to another, quite important point. When my constituents talk about parliamentary accountability, they mean holding me to account because they elect me. They do not mean holding to account some Members of the House of Lords, because they know that that cannot be done. There is a fundamental problem here. In principle, the hon. Lady is right and the House ought to have some ability to take a view on national policy statements, but surely the House should not be put in a position whereby it could find its view on a national policy statement being overridden by the other place, with no right under the Parliament Acts or any other measure for the wishes of this House to take primacy in that argument.
	The hon. Lady has to untangle this one because there is a real problem here. Would we in the House seriously vote to set up a situation whereby we could vote for a policy statement only to find that nothing would be agreed because a veto had been given to the other place?

Jacqui Lait: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has provoked me. I had been sitting here thinking, I am not going to be provoked. He has produced the solution, which of course is the Parliament Acts. They give the House of Commons primacy.

Clive Betts: I understand that the Parliament Acts operate only on legislation. I may be wrong about that and someone with more experience of these matters could correct me, but these measures are not legislation as such. They are orders and there will be no right to use the Parliament Acts.

Jacqui Lait: I do not want this to turn into a dialogue, but the hon. Gentleman may remember that my comments were along the lines of my accepting that my proposal is not perfect and that a method would have to be found for us to create a new, unique process. Within that, we could build in the Parliament Acts.

Clive Betts: In due course we may arrive where the hon. Lady would like to be, where I would like to be, and where I suspect Ministers want to be. The essential problem, which she has just identified again, is this. While it is not beyond the wit of man or woman to devise a solution, does she think it possible for us to propose in the Billperhaps it is not possible, because it would amount to a fairly fundamental constitutional changeapplication of the Parliament Act to orders, and establishing an arrangement whereby the process of approval for national policy statements ultimately gives the wishes of this House primacy over those of the other place? Would Members of the other place be likely to vote for a clause to that effect? The answer is that they probably would not, and trying to push the proposal through could delay the passage of the entire Bill.
	I believe that the hon. Lady is arguing that when we come to discuss againin, I hope, the not-too-distant futurethe relationship between this House and the other place, we should begin by discussing not how the constitution of the other place should be constructed and who should be a Member of it, but what are the powers of this House in relation to those of the House of Lords, which House has primacy, and whether that primacy applies to orders as well as to legislation. That is an important and interesting argument, but I am not convinced that tacking it on to a clause in the Planning Bill is the solution. If a solution could be found that satisfied the law officers who are advising us, I would probably vote for it, but I suspect that the hon. Lady's amendment does not do that, and I think she accepts that it does not really work in the context in which it probably ought to work. I therefore do not feel that I can support the amendment, although I instinctively share her sentiments.

Richard Benyon: I wish to speak to my amendment No. 3. The Minister and members of the Committee will recall that I raised the issue of extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields in Committee. As I said then, the Draper report, funded by the Department of Health and published in 2005, found that children who had lived within 200 m of high-voltage power lines since birth had a 70 per cent. higher risk of developing childhood leukaemia. The Government have received recommendations for action on the issue from the Health Protection Agency, from the Government's own stakeholder group SAGEthe Stakeholder Advisory Group ELF EMFand from those involved in the cross-party inquiry on childhood leukaemia and EMFs last year.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd), who could not be present for the debate, has given a lead. Recently, along with members of Children with Leukaemia, he met the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright), who statedas he has stated elsewherethat his Department, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department of Health were considering proposals for precautionary measures to be introduced this year. Those measures are likely to involve either the issuing of information to the public and planning authorities, or planning controls restricting the building of houses very close to high-voltage power lines.
	The Bill provides for the expansion of essential infrastructure, such as high-voltage power lines, and for the fast-tracking of planning approval for such projects. I believe that it should also provide for the introduction of precautionary measures. If the Government introduce planning controls applying to the building of houses and schools near power lines, the IPC must be able to implement planning controls on new power lines near houses and schools.
	As we know, for we have debated it at tortuous length, the Bill also provides for the creation of national policy statements on infrastructure. If the Government are not prepared to accept an amendment allowing the IPC to consider EMFs and health concerns in its decision making, I want to receive assurances that high-voltage overhead transmission lines will be the subject of a national policy statement.
	Amendment No. 3 would simply require the Secretary of State to consult on potential health risks arising from national planning policy during the drafting of national policy statements. I have deliberately left the wording vague. No doubt civil servants advising the Minister have expressed the fear that he may be required to consult all sorts of weird and wonderful organisations that are worried about energy fields and the like. Actually, we leave it to the Secretary of State to designate the organisations that he or she feels are appropriate to consult on the risks to health arising from the national policy statement.
	Many closely involved with this matter, such as the excellent pressure group Children with Leukaemia, are concerned that the proposed system will allow much less consultation and opportunity for representation from members of the public, as the IPC will be given only six months from the initial meeting to take evidence and another three months to deliberate. The IPC can decide what subjects are relevant to the discussion at the evidence sessions and can explicitly exclude subjects that are deemed to be covered by a national policy statement, which of course could include health.
	Obviously this is an extremely emotive issue for families and I ask the Minister to consider the implications for families and parents when a new proposed high-voltage power line or large transformer station is to be placed within close reach of housing or a school, as the understanding of the risks involved increases. This is an opportunity to address those concerns and to put a precautionary principle in the Bill. I ask the Minister to share his thoughts and an up-to-date assessment of where these negotiations are going in his Department and the two others that I have mentioned. I ask him also to give some comfort to the House that the Government are taking the matter seriously and are addressing a matter of great concern to a great many people. How he responds will determine how I proceed with the amendment.

John McDonnell: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) on his amendment. As an aside, the proposal is relevant because, within 20 years, we will be on the edge of a tipping point on climate change, which will be potentially irreversible. That is why it behoves us, on every relevant piece of legislation, to emphasise the issue of climate change. That is what the amendment does and, for the life of me, I cannot understand why there is any opposition to it whatever. I welcome the opportunity to vote on it.
	I have a number of problems with the Bill, but the one area where I did not have problemsit was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts)was the concept of national policy statements. I support them overwhelmingly. I encourage the idea of democratic involvement in the development of a policy statement that then becomes policy, and then advises those making planning decisions. Everyone who has served on a planning committee in the past knows the difficulty of understanding some of the policy diktats that have come from central Government and how they were ever developed, in many instances. This proposal clarifies the process, and I welcome the idea of publishing, publicising and consulting on the statements.
	On parliamentary scrutiny, I would prefer sequential involvementconsultation followed by the Committeebut I accept the compromise reached. We will see how it works. I hope that we will have a commitment to a review, which would then be brought back to the House after a period to see whether the system was working effectively. That review should be undertaken by Committee Chairmen but then reported back to the House.
	I do not understand why, at the end of the process, the House cannot have a vote. It is constitutional sophistry to say that these are policies and not legislation. We have a vote on a policy statement; it is called the Queen's Speech. There is a precedent. To give these statements credibility, they need the democratic stamp of approval, and what better than a vote of this House? Credibility is important. If these policy statements are driven through this House without a vote, we will find even more protestors on the roof of Parliament trying to exercise their democratic rights to tell us that we are not doing our job.
	On the question whether the other place has a veto, if it were up to me we would abolish the other place in the first instance, but that is another debate. However, as long as the other place has a role in the determination of legislation, I see no problem in it having a role in the determination of policy as well. We all know that the Parliament Act is implemented very rarely. The issues are bounced back between us and we eventually arrive at a compromise.
	On those points, I wish the debate would move on to examine how we can resolve the issue of the process. I do not understand the provision referring to
	either House of Parliament makes a resolution with regard to the proposal.
	I echo what the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) says; I do not know what makes a resolution means. Does it mean that an early-day motion is tabled? Does it refer to a Committee resolution? Is a negative or affirmative procedure of this House involved? We need clarification on that matter, to assure us that we have some democratic role in its final determination.

Clive Betts: Does my hon. Friend accept that there is problem? I hope that we could eventually find a way whereby we could resolve any conflict on orders that might arise between this House and the House of Lords, but the legislation process to which he referred is about the two Houses examining how different amendments that are moved in one place and not the other can eventually be reconciled. The problem with these orders is that there is just one vote on them; they are not amendable orders, so there is no process for resolving a situation where one House votes one way and the other House votes the other.

John McDonnell: I accept that, but I still think that the issue of principle can be resolved by negotiation in that sense, and that even if it involves facing down the other House, so be it. I would welcome the opportunity to involve some amendment process in these documents, but that is not being afforded to us in this debate. I regret that that was not raised in more detail in Committee.
	I tabled a specific amendment with regard to the adoption of existing policy statements as new policy statements, and I think that we have been given further clarity on that. I used the example of the aviation White Paper because that was the example that the Minister used in January. At that point in time, he was expressing the concern of the House that in some way the aviation White Paper would be bounced overnightto use his expressioninto a national policy statement. Let me put my understanding of what we have heard from the Minister tonight on the record, and if he does not intervene on me, I shall take that as tacit consent. I understand that if any existing policy statement has not satisfied the measures being introduced in this Bill for future policy statementsthorough consultation, a sustainability assessment, parliamentary scrutiny and then some form of resolution of this House, whatever that might beit cannot therefore be accepted as a policy statement.
	The Minister then said that any existing proposal has therefore to be determined under the existing procedures. Let us consider the example of aviation, which I take at random. Such a proposal would thus have to be based on the policies set out in the existing aviation White Paper. If that is the case, may I put on record the fact that the aviation White Paper is considerably out of date now? Many of us believe it was inaccurate when it was published in the first instance. Things have moved on, so any Government would be in jeopardy of considering a decision about the expansion of Heathrow airportagain, I use a random exampleon the proposals set out in the aviation White Paper. Given that we know that the issues have moved on and the factors that brought about that White Paper are no longer relevant, it would be unreasonable to take any decision based on that existing policy statement. Therefore, any future decisions about aviation should be based on a national policy statement that starts afresh.

Lembit �pik: As I have made clear, I am quite a big supporter of aviation. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Ministers do not really need to be too afraid of the proposal, because they could work in partnership with the aviation sector? It knows very well that the writing is on the wall and that it will have to work to consider the environmental consequences that he is describing in terms of emissions and other considerations. The problem is that as long as the Government refuse to engage with aviation on the environmental agenda, aviation will not feel considerable parliamentary pressure to operate responsibly in this regard.

John McDonnell: That intervention is incredibly helpful; I do not know how the hon. Gentleman will fit that into tomorrow night's concert, but I look forward to hearing the lyrics. [Interruption.] I thought that I would get another plug in for him. The essential point that I am trying to make is that this legislation, which I fully and wholeheartedly support with regard to national policy statements, sets a rigorous standard of process for engagement with the wider general public, the various other statutory bodies and the interest groups. A definitive statement on policy will then be arrived at, and the IPC can use it to guide its decisions.
	Any process by which we tried to pre-empt that and bounce in an existing statement without due process would undermine the whole system and be open to challenge. We cannot use existing White Papers as a stopgap or to justify major infrastructure decisions because they are so out of date. It would be better to await the development of proper NPSs before any major infrastructure decisions are made. In that way, we would arrive at legitimate decisions that may achieve popular support.
	I obviously have concerns about the development of Heathrow, but that is not the only issue. There are genuine concerns across the piece about the development of NPSs from existing statements without due process. I shall list the organisations that have expressed concern about the clause in question, which I have tabled an amendment to delete. Those organisations include the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Civic Trust, Friends of the Earth, the National Trust, the Ramblers Association, the Woodland Trust, the Campaign for Better Transport, the Wildlife Trust, the Council for National Parks, Plantlife International, the Geoconservation Association, the Enough is Enough organisation, AirportWatch and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. I do not know of a greater and wider coalition that has come together on an environmental issue. Those organisations represent millions of our constituents who are anxious about this process. They want to see due process take place and to be involved in the development of NPSs, which would give them credibility.
	There is potential for a new planning process based on real engagement, which could build up once again the credibility of planning. It could also meet the Government's criteria for expeditious decision making. On the basis of the assurances that we have been given and the Minister's tacit consent to the statements I have just made about my beliefs about the Government's position, I shall not press my amendment to a vote tonight.

Elfyn Llwyd: Following on from what the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has just said, I wish to refer to an exchange that I had with the Minister in Committee. I referred to clause 11, which states:
	The Secretary of State may take account of consultation carried out, and publicity arranged, before the commencement day for the purpose of complying with the requirements of section 7,
	which address the consultation leading up to the policy document. So that is a worry. It is also apparent that if a statement issued before the commencement is designated as an NPS, the Secretary of State is not bound to take into account the consultation carried out in connection with the statement. Those are contradictory and bad, but could happen under the Bill as it stands. Matters are not as comfortable as the hon. Gentleman seemed to think.
	I know that the Minister did his best to explain the position, and I am not being critical of him, but this issue is of great concern. The public have to be involved in the process from the beginning. After all, we are legislating for a brand new system for large-scale developments, and if the system is to stand the test of time the public must feel, and must be, fully involved in the process. It is no use having consultations with all and sundry to the exclusion of those who should have first say.
	Let us not kid ourselves: the Bill is designed to hurry through bad neighbour developments of the type listed in clause 13 (a) to (o)all potentially bad neighbours. The need for public scrutiny is thus higher than ever it was for general planning legislation.
	The point has been well made about the sort of retrospection that might occur if we were to accept previous White Papers as policy statements. I realise, too, that as the Minister said in a reply in Committee it might take up to 18 months to bring forward the national policy statement. We do not necessarily want a lacuna for all that time. I am not absolutely sure what we have to bridge that lacuna, but no doubt the Minister will respond on that point in due course.
	The national policy statement is a vital document. Everybody, in all corners of the House, would agree that it is important. In order to ensure that it is given the utmost legitimacy and the full support of the public, the public must be seen to be deeply engaged at all times in its formulation. I am sure that that is a fairly obvious thing to say, but perhaps it needs repeating.
	I concur with what the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said virtually throughout his speech. I agree with what the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), too, has said in his new clause. I cannot understand why new clause 1 is so unacceptable to the Government: as I mentioned before, sustainable development were the words used in the Government of Wales Act 2006, and we are talking about a tighter definition of climate change, as explained by the hon. Gentleman.
	Politicians today all talk about climate change and say that it is the biggest threat that we face. It should be uppermost in our minds at all times when we deal with legislation and problems. We must always consider climate change and sustainable development. If we were to accept the new clause, that would be a very positive sign. With respect to the Minister, I do not think that accepting it would hamper anybody. It will not tie anybody's handsfar from itand it would ensure that we concentrated, as we should, on this major threat to mankind.
	As politicians, we often say that the young are disengaged from the political process. In my experience, the young are often not disengaged from the issues of sustainability, climate change and the need for eco-friendly policies. No, they are not; they are probably more attuned than my generation was way back when. I do not know whether such a statement in the Bill would encourage more participation, bring youngsters into the process and make them feel that we are reflecting what is going on out there. We read our newspapers every daywe look at the icebergs melting and at the problems everywhere with pollution, and so on and so forth. It would be a fine thing if we were to accept the new clause, or something similar to it, and put those words in the Bill. It would be a sign that we were serious about what we say about climate change, and that we were not merely playing lip service to it, as some people outside might suspect.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I might be the last to speak in this debate, so may I congratulate the Government on producing a groundbreaking procedure through the national policy statements? They have been acknowledged as such by Members from both sides of the House. It is good to see the Secretary of State listening to what I think is one of the most important debates that we have had for a long time. I am surprised that there are not more Members present to contribute.
	There is no question about the fact that what we are doing today is groundbreaking. The national policy statements will need to be scrutinised by both Houses of Parliament in one way or another. Indeed, it would be folly not to use the expertise in the other place. The Minister needs to think about the parliamentary procedure very carefully. As well as being discussed with the four relevant Select Committees, the matter ought to have been referred to the Procedure Committee because we are making a new parliamentary procedure. The Procedure Committee should have worked out a way forward with the involvement of every Member of this House and of the other House who wished to become involved.
	There are lots of issues for the Select Committees to consider. There will be a huge work load. I do not necessarily know whether the Chairmen of the four Select Committees involved have worked out what the work load of producing the national policy statements will be. Even with the Government's help and even with the Government having produced a draft in the first place, the public consultation must then be considered, and expert witnesses must be taken into account as well.
	Some while ago in the debate, I should have declared my interest as one of the four chartered surveyors in the House and one who has practised in the planning field. I therefore know the minutiae of the issues involved and how long some inquires can take. If any of the minutiae is translated into what the Select Committees must do, the Committees have got a shock in store as regards the amount of work they are going to have to do. If the system is to work properly, not only must they produce a national policy statement on the subject that they are considering, but they must consider other national policy statements that have been already issued, because all national policy statements must interlock if they are to work properly with the IPC's involvement. There is no separating different transport systems or different energy-producing systems. All infrastructure in this country is ultimately interlocking; what we do with one system has an effect on the others.
	There is an immense work load. Yes, of course such things must be done in proper detail. I am open-minded about whether there should be a vote on this matter. I can understand the argument for a voteit gives democratic legitimacybut the Secretary of State is the person ultimately responsible to Parliament for how the whole IPC procedure works. Indeed, one of the major problems if Parliament has a vote is that I do not know how that review procedure that the Secretary of State can invoke will work. He would be invoking a review of something that Parliament had already voted on. So my inclination is to say that Parliament should scrutinise such things in great detail with whatever method is come up with, but the Secretary of State should be responsible for producing the national policy statement. That is probably the only way that it will work.
	In considering how they will proceed, the Select Committees will need to consider how the private Bill procedure worked in the past. That gives a clue to the amount of work that is involved. Will they allow the promoters to be legally represented, for example? Under the private Bill procedure, that delays the process hugely, because the professionals involved tend to go into much greater and much more technical detail than the laymen involved in the process. The Select Committees will need to look at that very carefully. Of course, those involved will want to streamline the procedure, but if it is too streamlined the legitimacy of the report produced will not be as great as if the matter had been considered in great detail.
	The promoters' position must be considered. For example, let us take BAA and this country's airports policy. How will the Select Committees deal with BAA's evidence? What declarations will the companies and individuals involved in the process have to make? Indeed, the members of the Select Committees will need to think about what declarations they make.
	We are making groundbreaking rules. The process needs to be expedited, but it must be seen to be legitimate and fair, and as other hon. Members have said the public must have an adequate say in every national policy statement if they are to come out at the end of the process with the legitimacy that they deserve, but that is not the end of the process. In a complicated world things move on very quickly, and I can understand that, at the end of the process, the national policy statements will need to be revised fairly frequentlyso the cycle starts all over again. The Secretary of State will have a role in their revision and the IPC can make recommendations on their revision, but Parliament must constantly keep in mind whether its own national policy statement is up to date and still applicable.
	The Government still have a little thinking to do on the whole matter. I am sure that the other place, with its acute legal brains, will have a great deal to say on the matter. It is a highly important matter; we need to get it right. I hope that the Government will not rush it. They should put it to the Procedure Committee. We need to think very carefully about the role of both Houses and whether or not we should have a vote and whether the Secretary of State should be the final arbiter in producing the national policy statements.

Peter Bone: I had not planned to speak but, unusually, I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown). National policy statements are extremely important and will receive a lot of scrutiny. The Lords is best at doing that sort of thing. The idea that the Secretary of State will make the final decision without a vote in both Houses of Parliament seems utterly wrong. I suggest to her that there is a danger that if national policy statements are not subject to scrutiny in the other place and are not voted on there, she will not have won the argument. We are talking about important national policy statements that should command the support of the whole House. I say to the Ministers present, in good faith, that it is not impossible that in a few months they will be sitting on the Opposition Benches and will regret the fact that the other place has not been given more of a say on the matters that we are discussing. As I say, unusually, I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: My hon. Friend is of course fully entitled to his views, and I welcome any disagreement; that is the nature of the House. However, if he proposes that there should be a vote, he will have to say how this House will retain primacy. Somebody has to make an ultimate decision. If he is saying that national policy statements have to be subject to a vote, at the end of the day one or other of the Houses will have to be supreme. I suggest that it must be this House, and there has to be a new mechanism to enable that.

Peter Bone: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention, but I am afraid that I disagree again. My argument is that the proposal must command the support of both Houses. Whether this House or the other has primacy is another debate. The idea that the other place should not be given a vote because its Members are not elected does not bear scrutiny, because I understand that the Government's policy is to have an elected upper Chamber. However, that is a different issue. If there are to be highly important national policy statements, they must command the widest support. If the Government cannot get their way, they need to revise the policy until it commands widespread support in both Houses. It is therefore important that votes are held at the end of the process. Any system that gives power to the Secretary of State is undemocratic.

John Healey: We have had a serious debate on the serious issues covered by this group of amendments. I pay tribute to the contributions that all Members have made this afternoon. We are breaking new ground in the Bill; we are putting in place a set of reforms and a new system that is opening up new territory for us.
	I was particularly struck by the contribution that the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) made; it was thoughtful and constructive, and there were points for me, and the Chairs of the Select Committees, to consider. I say to him that the Procedure Committee and the Liaison Committee were brought into discussions, not least because the Select Committee Chairs rightly wanted to consider and consult them. As a Minister, I have taken the view that it is proper for me to have a relationship and discussion with the Select Committee Chairs. It is for them to consult and consider the views of different parts of the House. That is how we have conducted the process to date.
	The hon. Gentleman is right that the Select Committees' work load might be significant as a result of national policy statements, particularly over the next year or two, when the bulk of national policy statements will be produced in draft for the first time. That is one of the reasons why, quite early on, I took the view, in response to the Select Committee Chairs' arguments, that they needed flexibility to decide how best to deal with each national policy statement that is producedwhether that should be one of the existing four departmental Committees or whether it should be a combined Committee that draws on the expertise, talent and experience from all four.
	Therefore, as I explained earlier, we have, through the Liaison Committee, left the Select Committee Chairs to take charge of that decision. In the end, we are interested in making sure that the scrutiny is strong and that it helps us produce the best possible national policy statements, but the Select Committee Chairs must take into account the potential pressures on their Committee.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: This has been a very good debate. Whatever our disagreements about having a vote, one thing that has come out of the debate is that we should use the expertise of the other place. In his discussions with the Select Committees, did the Minister discuss how that might be invoked?

John Healey: I have some respect for the other place and for the expertise of its membership, but this House has specific departmental Select Committees with the expertise to scrutinise and hold to account the Departments of Government. The other House has nothing akin to that. The other House may choose to debate and vote on national policy statements in the future. That is why we have said clearly that although we will take into account any resolution of either House, we will take into account the recommendations and reports of Select Committees of this House, giving proper recognition to the special expertise that our departmental Select Committees have, which marks them out from the range of different Committees that the other place has established.
	I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman say that he was open-minded on the question of voting. His hon. Friend the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), sitting immediately behind the Front-Bench team, promptly jumped up to say loyally that he was not open-minded on the question of a vote. For those who seriously advocate a vote, there are some significant factors that have not yet been worked through. I shall return to the matter at the end of my remarks, but the hon. Member for Cotswold was spot on when he said in the end that Secretaries of State must be responsible for national policy statements, because national policy statements are just that: they are policy statements and they are the responsibility of Government.
	I welcomed the contribution of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) to the debate in the Chamber and in Committee. He said that the public must be fully involved in the new planning system. They will be. There will be opportunities for them to be involved in a stronger, clearer and more systematic way than in the current system. First, the new national policy statements will be subject to full public consultation, with particular provisions where there are location-specific elements to policy statements that will have potential effects in local areas.
	Secondly, for the first time ever, there will be a duty on any promoter who wants to submit an application for a major project to contact and consult local communities and local councils before they even submit their application, with the IPC being prepared not even to consider the application unless that is done properly. Thirdly, there will be a protection for the right to be heard in inquiries. Fourthly, planning aid will be doubled so that individuals and local groups that are short of resources can get the advice and in some cases the support on representation that they require to make their views heard and their point of view tell in inquiries.

Elfyn Llwyd: I thank the Minister for the detailed response that he is giving the House.
	At the end of the day, the IPC can decide in what form an objector is to give evidence before it, and it can decide whether to allow cross-examination of the proposer. To my way of thinking, that is a little different from what the Minister said, albeit inadvertently.

John Healey: It is not different at all. Everyone will have a right to submit evidence to the commission; they can do that in writing. Everyone will have the right to be heard in an open session if they require that. We seek to put in place specific open sessions for those whose properties are affected by compulsory purchase orders. The questioning will be led by the commission itself, not by lawyers. It will not involve the kind of adversarial, sometimes off-putting, hugely expensive and often lengthy lawyer-driven process in which local voices are normally the first to get lost. We can ensure that the inquiry can be conducted fairly and faster than is sometimes the case in the big inquiries, some of which get bogged down for years.
	On the issue of existing policy statements, I say to the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy and my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), to paraphrase a former US President: read my words. [Hon. Members: Read my lips!] I said to paraphrase. I encourage the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy to consult the  Official Report tomorrow.
	I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington that I am glad to have his support for national policy statements and his acceptance that the arrangements on parliamentary scrutiny and public consultation, which we have now agreed with the Select Committee Chairs, are an important step forward. However, simply saying that he might wish to abolish the other place is beyond the scope of the Bill and does not answer the concern that the other place may take a different view, if that is equally binding to that of this place, on a policy statement. It is not an answer simply to say that the Parliament Act 1949 is in place; that is used only for legislation.

John McDonnell: Will the Minister give way?

John Healey: Will my hon. Friend forgive me if I do not? I have given way to him so often today, and I want to deal with the other points that have been raised.
	It is good to see the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon) in his place for this part of the proceedings. I hope that he will accept that his amendment No. 3 seeks to add a level of detail that is not appropriate for the Billcertainly not before the Government have come to their conclusions following consideration of the specialist advisory report or the recommendations and views of the Health Protection Agency.
	Let me give the hon. Gentleman what I hope he will take as a note of encouragement. The appraisal of sustainability that I have made clear will be required as part of the process for producing a draft national policy statementcertainly before the statement can be designatedwill need to consider, as an appraisal of sustainability and not just of the environment, population and human health as part of the social, economic and environmental effects. Furthermore, there is a provision in the Bill that gives the Secretary of State a power to prescribe statutory consultees in secondary legislation. I say to the hon. Gentleman that this is the process and that is the place in which to consider the roles of the organisations in which he has an interest.

Richard Benyon: I am grateful for those assurances, but will the Minister give me one more? Will he, in consultation with his colleagues in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department of Health, speed the process along? The issue now has a head of steam. We have a detailed statistic on the risk for children who live close to such facilities. We want progress in co-operation with other Departments, so that we can carry a precautionary principle through to some future conclusion.

John Healey: I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance and I pay tribute to him and the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd), who contributed to the Housing and Regeneration Bill. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), who contributed in the same way to the Energy Bill. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright), is keen to see this concluded, and I will also do my best to ensure that it is.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) described national policy statements as the basis of the Bill and said that they are right in principle and in process. He rightly said that the Select Committees are reassuring about the fact that they can do a proper job of scrutiny under the provisions that we set out in the Bill. I hope that that is a firm basis for this House to endorse our proposals. I understand him when he says that he has an instinctive attraction to the idea of a binding vote for approval, but he set out, more eloquently than I did, some of the problems and flaws that still exist in that regard.
	In response to the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), resolutions of either House are designed to deal with debates that may or may not take place in either House on a national policy statement. In the Bill, we frame that as taking into account those debates or the report of a Committee of this House. We mean both but draft it in that way because there may well be no debate or resolution on a particular national policy statement in either House.
	Very few Members on either side of the House have been more consistent or committed as advocates of action on climate change than my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). He is right to say that we should not be debating this in isolation. There are links to the Energy Bill, to the prospective marine Bill and, as I tried to make clear, to the Climate Change Bill. As I said earlier, there will be what he described as due regard to climate change in the appraisals of sustainability. It will then be built into national policy statements based on the sustainable development that he has been so keen to see, which will be the framework that the IPC has to use as a single-principle policy framework for considering and determining any applications for major projects.
	My hon. Friend took me to task and pointed out in particular that there is a duty in clause 151 on local planning authorities in relation to climate change. Let me be clear to the House. Clause 151 relates to plan-making onlyto development plan documents, which are the equivalent at the local level of our national policy statements. We do not need to put a similar duty on Ministers when drawing up the national policy statements because, first, we have the sustainable development duty; secondly, we have the duty on Ministers to do an appraisal of sustainability and to publish it alongside the draft national policy statement; and, thirdly, we have the Climate Change Bill, which will bear on Ministers in a way that it will not bear on local authorities. I hope that that may be sufficient reassurance to my hon. Friend not to press his amendments.

David Drew: I hear what the Minister says. However, if we are going to state categorically in the Climate Change Bill that there is a duty on Ministers, I see even more of a dilemma in not stating it categorically in this Bill. They should be interwoventhat is what gives them their strength.

John Healey: But the interlinking of the provisions of this Bill with the provisions of the Climate Change Bill was precisely his point and precisely my point. Instead of replicating or duplicating, the power of the provisions in the Climate Change Bill will bite hard on Ministers and on central Government but will not bite in the same way on local authorities. It is therefore reasonable and right to look in clause 151 at placing this duty on the equivalent plan-making power, with the development plan documents, as we are doing in the national policy statements.
	Finally, I turn to the comments of the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait). I welcome her welcome of our amendments on blight and compulsory purchase and her recognition that climate change will be considered as part of sustainability appraisals of the national policy statements. When she spoke to her amendments, she was right to say that the House will not own the policy. The policy is properly the responsibility of the Government and elected Ministers. The policy is rightly that of the Government, but before it is put in place it is also right that it is subject to strong and full public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny, which is what new clause 8 and the associated amendments are designed to do.
	The hon. Lady said that she did not want to see long inquiries in the future. We share that view. I do not want long, costly inquiries in which local people lose out to lawyers who make it impossible for them to get their views across. I do not want a situation where the inquiry becomes the place in which national need and national policy is debated. That is vital. It is a matter for the Government and this House, not inspectors or commissioners conducting an inquiry or an examination of a particular application. It is our responsibility to settle the matter so that decisions on applications are taken on the strength of applications within the framework of the new national policy statements. Those statements should be the principal reference for any IPC considerations. Of course, national policy statements must meet the standards of a sustainability appraisal, a public consultation and the parliamentary scrutiny set out in the Bill.
	The hon. Lady was kind enough to describe the form of parliamentary scrutiny and consideration that we proposed as new and unique. I hope that she accepts after this debate that it is an important innovation. I hope that she also accepts that the case she tried to make for a binding vote is rather like the state of the drafting, which she admitted is flawed. I hope that she accepts new clause 8, and I hope that she will not press either of her amendments to a Division. If she does, I shall ask my hon. Friends to resist.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 1
	  
	Climate change

'(1) A statement may only be designated under section 5 if the Secretary of State is satisfied that (taken as a whole) the policies in the statement contribute to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.
	(2) A statement designated under section 5 must contain a statement to the effect that it is the Secretary of State's view that the requirement of subsection (1) is satisfied.'. [Mr. Drew.]
	 Brought up, and read the First time.
	 Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:
	 The House divided: Ayes 241, Noes 256.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 It being after Ten o'clock, Mr Speaker  proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour , pursuant to Order [this day.]

Clause 5
	  
	National policy statements

Amendment proposed: No. 53, in page 3, line 8 , at end insert
	', and
	(c) has been approved by both Houses of Parliament.'. [Mrs. Lait.]
	 Question put, That the amendment be made:
	 The House divided: Ayes 223, Noes 277.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 5
	  
	National Policy Statements

Amendments made: No. 72, in page 3, line 16, after '7', insert
	', and the parliamentary requirements set out in section [Parliamentary requirements],'.
	No. 73, in page 3, line 34, after 'statement', insert ', and
	(b) lay a national policy statement before Parliament.'. [Mr. Alan Campbell.]

Clause 6
	  
	Review

Amendments made: No. 74, in page 4, line 7, after '7', insert
	', and the parliamentary requirements set out in section [Parliamentary requirements],'.
	No. 75, in page 4, line 14, after 'published', insert ', and
	(b) lay the amendment, or the statement as amended, before Parliament.'. [Mr. Alan Campbell.]

Clause 11
	  
	Pre-commencement statements of policy, consultation etc.

Amendment made: No. 76, in page 6, line 3 [Clause 11], at end insert
	'(3A) The Secretary of State may take account of things done before the commencement day for the purpose of complying with the requirements of section [Parliamentary requirements].'. [Mr. Alan Campbell.]
	 Bill, as amended in the Committee, to be further considered tomorrow.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Delegated Legislation Committees ),

Representation of the People

That the draft Parliamentary Constituencies (Northern Ireland) Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 31st March, be approved . [Mr. Alan Campbell.]
	 Question agreed to.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Delegated Legislation Committees ),

Health Care and Associated Professions

That the draft Nursing and Midwifery (Amendment) Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 21st April, be approved. [Mr. Alan Campbell.]
	 Question agreed to.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Delegated Legislation Committees ),

Pensions

That the draft Financial Assistance Scheme (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2008, which were laid before this House on 29th April, be approved. [Mr. Alan Campbell .]
	 Question agreed to.

EUROPEAN UNION DOCUMENTS

Carbon Capture and Storage

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 119(9) (European Committees),
	That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 5835/08 and Addenda 1 and 2; notes its objective of removing legislative barriers to the geological storage of carbon dioxide in existing Community legislation; and supports the Government's approach to securing practical and proportionate legislation that promotes the environmentally safe storage of carbon dioxide. [Mr. Alan Campbell.]
	 Question agreed to.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Ordered,
	That the Farriers' Qualifications (European Recognition) Regulations 2008 (S.I., 2008, No. 646), dated 5th March 2008, be referred to a Delegated Legislation Committee. [Mr. Alan Campbell.]

WELSH GRAND COMMITTEE

Ordered,
	That
	(1) the matter of the Future of energy in Wales, being a matter relating exclusively to Wales, be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for its consideration;
	(2) the Committee shall meet at Westminster on Wednesday 18th June at Nine o'clock and between Two o'clock and Four o'clock to take questions under Standing Order No. 103 (Welsh Grand Committee (questions for oral answer)) and to consider the matter referred to it under paragraph (1) above . [Mr. Alan Campbell .]

PETITION

Post Office Closures (Shropshire)

Daniel Kawczynski: My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) and I have been campaigning hard to try to retain as many post offices in Shropshire as possible, but this evening I wish to present a petition on Ditheringtonan appropriate name for the Prime Ministerpost office in Shrewsbury. I have worked with the leader of the Labour party in Shrewsbury, Councillor Mosley, and the local Conservative councillor, Malcolm Price, to try to retain Ditherington post office, which is vital, providing the services that it does.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of users of Ditherington Post Office
	Declares that the plan to close five Post Offices in the Shrewsbury and Atcham constituency will have a detrimental effect on the lives of local residents. The local Post Office is a vital and integral element of the local community, supporting social interaction between residents. They should not simply be assessed on an economic basis without taking into consideration the social economic value they offer to the local community. The proposed partial replacement of three of the Post Offices earmarked for closure by a mobile vehicle with restricted hours, and in some cases parked on the side of roads or in lay-bys, is a substandard solution not benefiting the world we live in today.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to instruct Post Office Ltd. to ensure that Ditherington Post Office is kept open.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000199]

UK WATER SECTOR

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. [Mr. Alan Campbell.]

Linda Gilroy: I am grateful for the opportunity to hold this debate. The future of the water industry affects many areas of the public and private sectors, including the private citizen mindful of the water bills he or she pays; the farmer concerned about the possibility of drought; the community worried about the risk of flooding; the architects and planners building to meet the demand for housing; and the Government in co-operating with other nations to ensure worldwide access to clean and sustainable supplies of water.
	Earlier this year, the all-party parliamentary water group concluded its investigation into the future of the UK's water industry. I want to put on record the help we received from eaga plc, the Society of British Water and Wastewater Industries, Unison, Water UK, Wessex Water, the Consumer Council for Water and WWF-UK.
	I am pleased to see that, in addition to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck), some members of the all-party group are in their places, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) and the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George), who both took part in the inquiry.
	The fact that representatives from more than 70 different organisationsranging from business and industry to trade unions and consumer groups, scientists and environmentalistsattended the report's launch is testament to the importance of this issue. We produced a range of conclusions and recommendations touching on many areas. However, today I wish to focus on affordability and the future of metering and charging. I hope to allow a little time for my right hon. Friend, the chairman of the all-party group, to add more about water services and management and issues relating to drought and flooding.
	I make no apology for the fact that for me the imperative remains affordability, which is at the top of our agenda in the south-west. People face rising fuel prices, and other cost-of-living pressures, set against the backdrop of the credit crunchdifficult economic circumstances which our Government are well placed to guide us through. Water is not a luxury but a necessity, and for that reason we must do all we can to ensure that the regulatory framework bears down on what it costs our constituents. The Minister will know that I have long campaigned on the issue of unfair water charges in the south-west, caused by the botched privatisation by the Conservative Government, which means that our average household water bill is 100 more than elsewhere in the country. Where are the Conservatives tonight?
	For elderly individuals living alone on a basic pension or for lone parents with young children, water bills can be a struggle regardless of where they live. The fact is that high water charges often affect most those individuals and groups least able to cope. There are close links between water affordability and water efficiency, so in addressing affordability there are opportunities to dovetail well with the Government's environmental agenda.
	From 1997 onwards, the Government have shown sustained commitment to tackling fuel poverty. Under the Warm Front scheme, representatives visit customers to advise them of ways they can reduce their energy bills, install energy-saving features, such as cavity insulation, and undertake benefit entitlement checks. In my constituency, the scheme has visited 2,832 households, saving them each an average of 200 on their fuel bills.
	As the Minister knows, the Warm Front model was used for a similar scheme in the water affordability pilot that was carried out in the south-west. That small study of 520 households managed to find savings of more than 10 times the cost of providing the service. We can imagine the savings that could be made if such a scheme were rolled out nationally. South West Water has since built on that work through its water care scheme, which will help 7,500 customers over three years and is the first of its type in the water industry. I think that Wessex Water has a similar scheme.
	I know that South West WaterWater UK has also raised the subject on behalf of the industry in generalwould appreciate the same access to data sharing about people on low incomes as the Government proposed this past Friday to explore for energy companies. I hope that the Minister will raise that with his colleagues. In addition to helping to target the schemes that the water industry is introducing, such as the water care scheme that I just mentioned, such a measure could help to turn around the vicious circle of high debt that costs us all 11 per customer nationally.
	I think I am right to say that up to 40 per cent. of household energy is used to heat water. An ideal solution would therefore seem to be to combine the Warm Front and water care schemes, with representatives trained to advise on both water and energy efficiency in the same visit. The better we target such help, the more likely it is to create a virtuous circle that will enable water bills to be kept down.

Andrew George: The hon. Lady is making a strong case. Of course, she is absolutely right to say that when the water industry was first privatised it created a relatively risk-free environment for what I would argue was a money-extortion exercise, particularly in areas such as the south-west. For elderly customers, that is a particular problem. Does the hon. Lady agree that in households where occupants are unable to install a water meter, and particularly in houses in multiple occupation, companies should always adopt a default position of going for the assessed charge in order to reduce the water bills for those very low income households?

Linda Gilroy: The hon. Gentleman makes a relevant point. There are many examples of sheltered housing in my constituency, as well as elsewhere in the south-west and all over the country, where such a move could significantly benefit many older people.
	Schemes and innovations such as water care can help individuals to save money. The all-party group also recommended fundamental changes to the manner in which water is provided and paid for. The most significant was our call for the phased introduction of universal metering. Indeed, in response to water charges many consumers are already switching to metering by choice. Unsurprisingly, we have seen that in particular in the south-west, where I think some 65 per cent. of consumersabout 13 out of 20have switched to metering by choice. That has resulted in the development of a two-tier water payment system, leaving those who do not switch at a further disadvantage.
	Smart meters, or intelligent meters, present an exciting opportunity to tackle these long-neglected issues. Again, co-operation with the energy industry, which I believe to be likely to introduce smart metering, ought to provide some savings in that regard if it is tackled soon. Many believe that tariffs tailored to the circumstances of the customer could not just deal with some of the supply and demand issues, but could address issues of affordability for many customers.
	I am, of course, aware that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is conducting a review of the future of metering and charging. I hope that the Minister will update us on the progress of the review and I would be grateful if he would give the House an indication of when it is expected to report.
	I would also appreciate hearing the Minister's assessment of how far the review will go towards finding a solution to the affordability issue. Does he share my view that it could indeed provide light at the end of the tunnel for some of those constituents burdened with high bills? Of course, if that is a solution, it is a medium to long-term one, and while making water charges fairer and possibly lower for more people, we need to be realistic about the fact that there will be losers as well as winners. Some of those losers could be among the least well off if they are not protected. I am thinking especially of large families and those who need to use larger quantities of water for health reasons.
	In addition to ensuring that we make the most of the vulnerable persons regulations, I hope that the Minister will consider the all-party group's call, which has also been made by the Consumer Council for Water, for changes to the tax and benefits system to support those who are struggling most to pay for water. That should be much more affordable to the Exchequer if, through the combination of measures that I have mentioned, we can reduce the extent to which they are needed.
	I also support CC Water's call to limit price rises. It has recently written to all water and sewerage companies in England and Wales to ask them
	to return value to consumers, either by keeping price increases to inflation levels or below, or providing extra investment in pipes, sewers and treatment works that will provide future consumer benefits... We know that the industry did very well from the 2004 price review, as there was a rapid rise in value of companies and that for the first time since privatisation no water companies appealed against the price limits set by Ofwat.
	I hope that the Minister will also look at our report's recommendations on the vulnerable group regulations. Our report found that the regulations were not working as well as they could. The principal problem is that the WaterSure scheme is not reaching very many peopleonly 16,200 households nationally, according to the last figures in 2006-07. Not surprisingly, a substantial proportion of that number3,800, or almost a quarter are in the South West Water area, which covers Devon and Cornwall's population of just 1.5 million of England's total population of 50 million.
	Our all-party report recommended that the definition of customer service be extended to include vulnerable customers and be included in the PR09 price-setting review as a specified performance target. The regulator could then set goals for the companies to be proactive in reaching out to vulnerable customers on that and other aspects. I hope that the Minister is giving serious consideration to encouraging the regulator.
	Action on water charges for vulnerable customers is long overdue. Water bills have risen a lot in the past two decades. Although there have been very significant benefits to our environment, infrastructure and tourism industry through increased investment, too many people are struggling to pay bills that are unacceptably high. As things stand, the problem looks set to get worse, as shown by DEFRA's 2004 study of affordability. If that is allowed to continue, more people will fall into more debt, and as a result large bills will become larger still as companies seek to reclaim the money owed.
	The Minister must not only find a long-term and comprehensive solution to break this vicious cycle, but consider improving short-term safeguards to protect the most vulnerable. I look forward to his response and to hearing from my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe.

Elliot Morley: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) on securing this debate. I pay tribute to her for her role in the inquiry and as the former chair of the all-party water group, in which she was held in very high esteem, and I include the long campaign that she has fought in robustly defending the interests of the people of the south-west.
	I want to make a number of short points. First, I echo the point made about affordability. One of the reasons why I strongly support the conclusions on water meters is not only in respect of resource management, important though that is, but in trying to find a more imaginative way to put in place price structures. Various forms of tariff structures could provide an opportunity to assist those people who are on low incomes.
	I strongly echo the point made about the pilot scheme in the south-west, with eaga identifying people who could also claim benefits. There is strong link between water and fuel poverty, and my hon. Friend made that point very clearly.
	I should also like to mention the part of the report that dealt with innovation. As my hon. Friend says, there is great scope for innovation as regards the possibility of saving heat when heating water, and in relation to the way water is treated; I am thinking of grey water systems and the recycling of water. There are some very good examples, but a great deal more could be done. There is an issue with research and development on the part of industry.
	My final point is linked to resource management. The report focused strongly on the fact that there can be environmental gain from resource management, through upland catchment management, which has been pioneered in trials such as the SCAMPSustainable Catchment Management Programmeproject, and through the extension of sustainable urban drainage, which has a great deal of unfulfilled potential. I acknowledge that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs consultation put forward the idea of a planning permission system for those who want to pave over gardens and do away with porous paving. That was a good example of innovation and how to encourage sustainable water management. A great deal more could be done.
	One of the report's conclusions is that water has been taken for granted for far too long in this country. It is an important resource and its importance needs to be taken more seriously. It is a valuable resource, and that has to be reflected in the way it is managed and in what we are charged for it. I know all the arguments about the need for profits and investment, but at a time of extremely robust profits for the companies, consumers are facing a significant increase in prices, and we need to have a thought for the most vulnerable.

Phil Woolas: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) on securing the debate and putting forward a strategy for water that successfully builds a consensus for radical change. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley). The issue of how we regulate, manage and charge for our water resources and sewerage services is extremely important, and I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the Government's policy.
	2008 is an important year for water policy. In February we published a new water strategy for England. We called it Future Water. It set out the Government's long-term vision for the water sector. I am keen on having a long-term strategya 25 year-plus approach to the sector. The policy sets out a coherent framework underpinning water management commitments and outlines the Government's priorities for the sector. The timing of the debate is therefore fortunate.
	The policy sets out a vision of what the sector should look like by 2030 and the steps that we believe will get us there. It looks at the water cycle as a whole, from precipitation, rain and drainage through to treatment and discharge by the water companies. It is founded on the understanding, based on scientific advice, that every action that affects one part of the water environment can potentially have an impact elsewhere. We have a genuinely holistic water policy.
	Of course the challenges for sustainable delivery of secure water supplies are significant. Combined with that is the challenge of securing continued improvements to our water environment. As if that were not enough, projections of the impact of climate change and other pressures are now business as usual for the sector. It was therefore a great pleasure to welcome the report from the all-party group on water, which was a timely and powerful contribution to the debate. It rightly emphasises the importance of communicating the value of water to consumersa point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe repeated tonight. That is a central theme of Future Water. Because of our need to adapt to climate change, and because we use more water through having more water-intensive lifestyles as economic prosperity rises as a result of successful economic policies and hard work by the British people, we need to consider using water more efficiently and, more importantly, more sustainably.
	The way in which we pump, treat and clean water has been mentioned. The way we heat water has implications for energy use. I am determined that our water strategy should dovetail with our energy efficiency strategy, lowering heating bills as well as water bills. We have an opportunity to do that.
	I want to move faster on metering. If it is done properly with social tariffs and other schemes to ensure that we use less water, metering can reduce water use in a fair way. Questions exist about the timing of implementation, the technology, the pace of the roll-out and the impact on customers. I shall return to those topics if time allows.

Andrew George: Although I do not imagine that the Government will address the fundamental problem of the privatisation of the water industry, which is clobbering customers in my area and in the area of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy), if the Minister follows his policy through, he will recognise that in an area like mine with a large number of second homes, those customers clearly benefit a great deal from having water meters, rather than paying by other means. Is he not concerned that not only is there a severe problem of water poverty, but metering is a way of rewarding people who should be paying more?

Phil Woolas: I commend the hon. Gentleman. The Members of Parliament for the region have done a great job of highlighting the issue. He is right. We have passed the tipping point. Generallyone can only generalise, as it is not possible to be specific about individual householdspeople not on meters are subsidising people who are on meters. That is especially true in his region and that of my hon. Friend, but it is true around the country. One of the reasons why I look forward to the findings of the independent review that we announced is getting the figures from the research to give us a better understanding of that point.
	The all-party group, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe and others have led, has given us important evidence on that point. There are other issues that the report has raised. I particularly want to mention the work on catchment-sensitive farming, which the report examined. It also raised the issue of surface water drainage and the slow take-up of sustainable urban drainage systems. One aim of the consultation on improved surface water drainage that was also part of the Future Water strategy was to clarify responsibilities for adoption and management of SUDS, on which my right hon. Friend has been leading the charge for many months and years. The report also welcomed the independent review of competition and innovation in the water industry.
	The reviews were not undertaken because we do not know where we are going. They were designed to tell us how to get to where we want to be. The most important issue, which my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton has continued to champion, is charging for water and sewerage services. Only 30 per cent. of households in England have meters. That means that in the majority of cases, charging for water is based on the 1970s rateable value of homes. That does not bear any relation to the amount of water used.
	Metering is the usual method of charging for water in most other European countriesand, indeed, beyond European boundaries. It encourages water efficiency, exposes leaks on the domestic side of the supply pipes and reduces overall household water consumption by 10 per cent. That could be reduced further with the right tariff. In England, metering is increasing at about 2 per cent. a year; obviously, at the moment that happens predominantly through customers' own choices. There is a clear case for meters in areas of serious water stress, and we will need meters to be near-universal in such areas by 2030, if not before. Outside such areas, the case for meters is also strong, on the basis of equity. I look forward to the review's findings and to seeing whether the policy will be confirmed.
	Metering and innovative tariffs are an important weapon in our armoury. However, that is not enough to satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton. She is looking for other solutions, particularly for the vulnerable and those on low incomes. As more and more householders switch to meters because they might save money, there are transitional problems for those left behind who do not switch. I am thinking particularly of large families on low incomes. I look to the independent review that we have commissioned to provide answers and options in respect of that policy area as well. That will look beyond the current charging framework and advise on changes that could create fair and cost-reflective charges with protection for those vulnerable households. I plan to get the review under way shortly. Its findings will herald the most significant changes in charging since privatisation.
	I also want to mention the periodic review of water price limitsor PR09, as it is known. That process, led by Ofwat, is well under way. Draft business plans are expected from companies in August. As part of the process, last year I published a statement of obligations for companies and regulators to bring together and describe the environmental and drinking water legislation applying to the water industry over the PR09 period. Other influences include Future Water, which I have already mentioned. It sets out not only the Government's plans for 2030, but the statutory social and environmental guidance to Ofwat on the areas of social and environmental policy to which the Government expect Ofwat to contribute.
	All such considerations have to be placed in a long-term agenda. That is why I particularly welcome the addition by Ofwat of a 25-year strategic direction statement. Furthermore, water companies are planning water resources over a 25-year horizon. Combined with robust business planning through the price review process, that should ensure that companies are prepared for the future. I look to Ofwat to ensure that price limits are as high as they need to bebut no higherto enable companies to finance their functions.
	Affordability continues to be a key concern for the Government; I appreciate the particular problem with affordability in south-west England. Customers there have to pay more for their water and sewerage services than do customers of other regions. As has been said, that situation developed out of privatisation, which required each customer to pay for the costs incurred by their water company. What is to be done? My hon. Friend will be aware of the pilot study that considered ways to target and assess the effectiveness of water affordability assistance in the form of benefit entitlement checks, meter installation and water efficiency devices and advice to low-income households in the south-west. I am pleased that, as my hon. Friend reported, South West Water is taking those measures further and is seeking to provide such a service to 7,500 of its customers.
	I am also considering the issue of bad debt. Of course I understand that there are those who cannot pay, but I am not prepared to accept the situation whereby those who will not pay are putting up the bills for the rest of my hon. Friend's constituents.

Linda Gilroy: I am not sure if my hon. Friend is going to cover my point about data sharing, but does he recognise that that would help companies to distinguish between the two categories?

Phil Woolas: My hon. Friend predicts my next statement. I do indeed recognise the importance of data sharing. It is wrong that companies cannot identify tenants through access to information from landlords. I am examining the situation to deal with not only those who cannot pay but those who will not pay and are abusing the system and putting up the bills of my hon. Friend's hard-working, law-abiding constituents as a result. I have talked to the water companies, including South West Water, to see how we can incorporate that. I refer my hon. Friend to the draft Queen's Speech, which included a proposal for legislation on water and flooding. I make no specific pledges on the point that she made; suffice to say that I think she can draw her own conclusions. I congratulate her on her campaign, as well as other hon. Members across the party divide.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at  nine  minutes to Eleven o'clock.